


"that is how i will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.”

by DontBall



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Barista Bella, F/F, F/M, High School, Kind AU, M/M, Multi, Queer Character, What if Bella had a personality, eventually, everybody will kiss because this is high school, it's all very complicated but they get there, just saying, ok it's AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:42:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22264303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DontBall/pseuds/DontBall
Summary: “I have something to tell you,” Edward says, and he looks constipated — but honestly he always looks like someone shoved some particular bad-smelling cheese under his nose.“Ok, cool, I got something to tell you too.” She says. Finally, she thinks. And then “We can say it together, how about it?”“Together? At the same time?” And he looks so surprised with this suggestion it’s almost cute. This guy.“Yeah, you ready?” a deep breath “ On three!”“Wait! Hold on, on three or after three?!”“Two!”“Bella! On three? Is it on three?!”“ Three!”“I’m a vampire!” “Your sister is hot!”A beat.“Oh shit, you’re what?”
Relationships: Bella Swan/ OFC, Jessica Stanley/Bella Swan, Rosalie Hale/Bella Swan
Comments: 148
Kudos: 778





	1. Stranded Too Deep, don't ball Bells.

**Author's Note:**

> the first chapter is slow chapter but bare it with me

Bella’s as excited to land on Forks as one can be excited to go live in a city that has, like, five to six days of sun a year. It’s not a lot but it will have to do. 

She stands awkwardly for a minute, looking around with her heavy luggage hanging on one shoulder — her other beat-up backpack on the ground, it wasn't like it could get any dirtier —trying hard not to be too judgmental. So what that it looked like a bus station? And was that a moose head hanging on the wall…Christ. 

At least Bella’s outfit was following the overall theme of lumberjack's little rut: oversized flannels and faded working boots. There was a joke to be told about lesbians and flannels but Bella was so not in the mood. 

Ok, the minute of self-pity was done. 

Not seeing Charlie anywhere — and pretty confident that the flight was a tad bit early — Bella dragged herself to the small coffee shop close by. Coffee would improve her mood for sure. 

Sometime later she was sipping a nice whatever-the-fuck-the-name-was, it tasted like a latte, and scrolling around her cellphone. She had already posted a nice artsy pic of her coffee with a random-ass _gif_ to her IG, so now everyone knew she was alive — she had also texted mama Renée a nice assortment of emojis. 

Bella was right in the process of creating a playlist entitled _feeling moody under the rain_ when a set of fingers wiggled in front of her face.

“Charlie!” There he was: tall and weirdly tan for a guy who lived under the kind of weather Forks was famous for. His hair was whitening at the edges and there were more wrinkles than before but it was her dad alright.

“Hi, Bella, it’s been a while…” Charlie said before doing an excruciating awkward sequence of scratching his head, leaning for a hug and changing his mind to two nice pats on her back.

Oh, yes. The old Swan charm. Bella’s father was always a nice reminder that her complete lack of social skills was hereditary. 

Bella did her own half-hug-half-pat before they head out to the car. It was raining, but Charlie’s smile was warm. Bella had forgotten how much she missed her dad, how he always seemed genuinely happy to have her around.

It was later, while they are driving down the road and the traffic lights were flicking about — and if Bella had one poetic bone in her body it would look beautiful but it just made her dizzy honestly — that Charlie turns to her, clears his throat, kinda blushes a little, and says :

“You know, kid, I know it was all of the sudden…and not exactly what you wanted but I’m really glad you’re here Bells.” 

“Me too, dad, me too.” 

* * *

Bella believed that every 17 years old would have a set of random-ass stuff they could not live without, hers were :

1\. A touch-phone with a somewhat cracked screen dropped way too many types on the concrete. 

2\. Her trusty lighter. It was a rare color, a mint-green that wasn’t usually found at the convenience store. One of her Phoenix’s friends had put D.A.R.E sticker to it— for irony’s sake. 

3\. Her swiss-knife, which had been Charlie’s last gift to her before she stopped visiting. It was a nice red, with 2 sets of knives and a mini-screwdriver. Practical and trustworthy…much like Charlie.

4\. A chipped Arizona’s Diamondbacks mug. Phil — Mama Renée’s nice boyfriend…or fiancé now? — had given it to her some time ago. Funny enough, Bella had never cared about baseball before him, but after getting almost _drowned_ in Diamondbacks paraphernalia she kinda, maybe, learned to enjoy it. And Renné had looked so fucking pleased anyways…

5\. So many pen-drives with so many random assortments of _shit,_ ranging from films, music, the odd porn, and some malware or another Bella carried around for kicks. What? You never know…

And that was all the shit she took some care at unpacking, before just turning her bag upside down on the nearest drawer. 

Her new room still was that light lavender, which she had outgrown around the 13 years old mark. Charlie had already said she had free-reign to redecorate so a trip to the closest paint store was on the schedule — also, apparently on the schedule, was getting reacquaintance with Charlie’s best friend, Billy, and Billy’s kid, Jacob. 

Honestly? Bella was tired — still planing how to sneak a drag without her father noticing — and the last thing on her list was playing nice with another teen. She vaguely remembered making mud-pies and fishing with him when they were ten? Or was that picking shells? Who fucking knows.

But there were talks of a car, her new car, so she would be nice enough. She was easily bribed.

Not 20 minutes after throwing all her shit around, Charlie called her downstairs to meet his crew. She somehow managed to stumble on the last step and almost face-plant on the floor —which was always bound to make a good first impression.

“Bella, I don’t know if you remember Billy” Charlie gestured to the man in the wheelchair. He was tan, with long black hair under a baseball cap — Washington Nationals, tough-luck — and a bunch of laughing wrinkles around his face. He looked like a nice man, hard, but nice anyway. “We used to be all over his house when you’re little.”

“It’s great to see you again, kiddo.” He waved at Bella and she waved right back “I bet you won’t remember this chump here.”

Bella had to look up a little to get Jacob’s full picture. He was all long limbs and awkward- teenager, long black hair — would he let Bella braid it? — and a furious blush. He scratched the back of his neck.

“We used to make mud-pies together…” Oh, mystery solved. “Not like you would remember that, but yeah…”

“Oh, I do…yeah, kinda. Nice mud-pies and all.” Bella wanted to sink in a hole, ‘nice mud-pies’, what the _fuck_? “ You grew a lot.”

“Runs in the family!” Billy chipped in, clearly a proud father “He’s also pretty good with a wrench, fixed that old truck for ya.”

They all went to the porch to take a peek at Jacob’s supposed skills and when she saw her y new ride shecouldn’t help but pull Charlie in a sideways hug. 

The truck was old as fuck, Bella wouldn’t be surprised if the thing worked with steam or something, but it was so _badass._ Red, big and sturdy — like it could run over a fucking tree if she pushed the gas hard enough. 

“It’s old, I know, but it’s sturdy. I had a mechanic take a look at it and Jacob gave it a nice once-over. It’s all yours.” Charlie said while Jacob blushed and mumbled ‘It was nothing, really.’ Charlie produced a set of keys from his pocket. “ Go take a look inside.”

Bella hugged him once more before snatching the keys and running over to the truck. _Her_ car. _Sweet lord_ the freedom of it. She could go anywhere now. She could drive to the middle of the woods and have a _fucking_ smoke.

  
Jacob was hanging out on the truck’s open door, while Bella pressed all the buttons and the horn, twice. The radio was a bust, Jacob explained there was a tape stuck inside it and replacing everything was beyond his abilities. Well, that was a bummer — Bella liked to blast her music even if she was driving 2 miles anywhere. That would crank her style a little…

  
And talking about style…

“Hey, Jake, how good are you with a brush ?”

* * *

By the time they were reaching the hardware store, Bella already knew Jake was a Capricorn (yikes), that he liked to build things up from scratch, that he didn’t care much about baseball but was partial towards basketball, and that the internet connection at the Reservation sucked.

“Take a turn here,” He said, balancing Bella’s phone on his thigh. The radio situation would have to be solved quickly, Bella couldn’t see herself driving the 15 minutes boring road to school without a booming sound.

“I like this song, can you send it to me later?” He said, tapping a finger on the touchscreen. Bella nodded back. 

“That’s ‘The Less I Know The Better’ by Tame Impala. We need to educate you better kid.” 

“I told you already, the internet sucks ass at the Res. The only time I can download anything is when I drive over the border…I have to prioritize my bands.” He argued and Bella snorted back.

“Yeah, yeah. Bring me a pen-drive and we can make it work…”

  
“Hey, park here!” Jacob tapped on the dashboard and Bella made a sharp curve to the right —the truck verging dangerously — and suddenly they were at the parking lot on the back of a dusted hardware store. 

  
“Cool, cool, cool” Bella said, climbing out of the truck, stumbling a bit on the concrete and righting herself up like a pro.

  
“You drive like a maniac!” Jacob shouted from the other side of the truck but Bella just waved him off. Yeah, maybe she was slightly out of practice, and driving the big-ass truck was similar to taming a war tank, regardless…she thought she did alright. 

  
The store was…well, typical. High ceiling, bright white lights, bored semi-adult staff wearing fluorescent vests. Bella pushed a basket to Jacob and grabbed one for herself. 

  
“Game plan: hit the brushes, rolls, and all that jazz. I’ll grab the paints.” He arched an eyebrow back at her to being bossed around but then shrugged his shoulders. Nice kid, Bella could get used to this agreeable personality.

  
She regretted all her decisions not ten minutes later when one of the pubescent, vest-wearers, decided to follow her around the store, making suggestions and asking so many _goddammed_ questions. 

  
Yes, she was new. No, she didn’t need help. No, really, she didn’t need help. Yes, Forks High-school. No, she surely wasn’t looking forward to meeting this dumbass there. 

  
Since pretending to look for the meaning of life in a can of paint was not getting her point cross, Bella preceded to grab two random buckets —that hopefully were the shade of grey she was going for— mumbled an excuse to vest-wearer and made a run for it. 

  
She managed to grab Jacob by the arm two hallways over, where he was taking too seriously the mission to pick the perfect brush.

  
“Hey, what do you think of these…”

  
“Whatever. The cheaper the better. Here, help me out” Bella shoved her full basket to Jacob’s chest, fished her pocket for her wallet and tossed a couple of notes inside. “For the love of _God_ , just pay this shit for me. I’ll get you some ice-cream or whatever.” 

“Wha— No. Questions. — Ok?”

“Thanks, you’re a true mate.”

  
And then Bella made a hasty escape through the toilets-seats aisle.

* * *

  
Jacob found Bella sometime later crouched behind her truck, a fag hanging from her lips, and scrolling away on her phone. 

  
“Here, there were like 30 bucks of change…you gave me way too much money.” He said more to the ground than to her, a bunch of bags balanced on his side. 

  
“Pocket it,” Bella answered, making no move to retrieve the money. She raised her hand before Jacob’s indignant reply “Dude, I practically kidnapped you today. I’m pretty sure this was not your ideal Saturday. Just let it be.”

  
“It’s fine, I’m having fun…you’re fun” He blushed, still not looking her in the eyes. Bella prayed to some god above that this nice boy was not — pretty please — developing a puppy crush for her. 

  
“Uh, sure Jake, thanks,” Bella answered, trying her best to ignore the awkwardness hanging in the air. She threw her smoke on the ground and stepped on it.

  
“ I didn’t know you smoke” Jacob blurted, climbing into the truck.

  
“Yeah, it helps with my anxiety and stuff…” Bella scratched the back off her head “ Shit! Sorry, did you want one?”

  
“Me? No! No, I mean, I never tried one…it’s cool though. If you smoke.”

  
And Bella felt so weirdly _dirty_ for trying to offer a fucking cancer stick to this kid — honestly, he probably can’t even grow a beard yet — that she just went all the way on the gas pedal, the truck flying forward. 

  
“Let’s take that ice-cream, yeah?”

  
It took her around five minutes to remember she had no clue where the closest ice-cream parlor was. 

* * *

  
By the end of the day, Bella feels like she’s been living in Forks for one month — not a whole day. 

After her slight — ahem—detour, she and Jacob managed to get some ice on the side. There was no cookies dough flavor, which Bella considered a travesty. Jacob made a good case for the raspberry with cookies’n’cream and Bella had to agree it was damn good. Perfect sweet and sour ratio.

Then, they went on to paint Bella’s room. Credit is given where credit is due: Jacob was a good sport. They varied between coating the walls and arguing about the songs playing on the background. Around 7 PM, Charlie went upstairs to offer some pizza. 

By the end of it, Bella had half of her bedroom done. A nice light grey with a rough texture. So much better than that awful soft-lavender…

For the help, Jacob got a kiss on the cheek and one of her best pen-drive, filled with the cream of the best fucking songs. Oh, yeah, she gave her number to him as well. And texted almost immediately to say ‘thanks’ — Mama Renée would be so proud.

Bella laid exhausted on the bed, feet hanging on the side. It was a good day, it was a good _start_. She felt content and relaxed…something almost alien back in Phoenix.

Maybe Fork was the actual shit, maybe she could chill out the rest of the year, get into fishing and find joy in the small things —like that dumbass film about the guy in the woods.

Yeah, she could do that. She definitely could.


	2. Film Stars Don't Come To Forks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Initiate the first contact. Bella may not survive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter name inspired by 'Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool' which is such a great title to a really badly written novel (but good film, look it up).

**Wednesday- Lunch Break (First Contact)**

Do her eyes deceive her or were those some pretty _hot_ folk walking across the cafeteria?

Hollywood hot. Victoria Secret’s model hot. That actress in that movie about the demon hot. 

In some deep, rotten, gay part of Bella’s brain, ‘Pretty Woman’ was playing on full force. 

And they were all hot, drop-dead gorgeous, clearing-saliva-of-your-mouth-hot. 

But the blonde, that _blonde_. With the resting bitch face and cheekbones sharp enough to cut fucking _rocks._ That blondie was the most beautiful angel Bella had ever seen. 

They crossed eyes for a second, a split second. She had perfect molten-golden eyes and the most perfect little sneer of displeasure on her face. 

Bella was _gone_. It was not loved at first sight but it was definitely _‘I want to hit that’_ at first sight.

And here she was thinking her first day of class had been eventful.

* * *

**Monday Morning**

If it hadn’t been freakishly sunny on her first day of school, Bella would have been unbelievably late — as it was, she was just late.

The sun escaping through the thin curtains — she needed new ones,— woke her up just in time to attempt some form of breakfast.

Which in retrospect was such a _bad_ idea, she basically burned the roof of her mouth with a cup of coffee. 

She also managed to drop her phone a total of five times while driving to school — looking for the perfect playlist, of course — and by the time she parked her car, the touchscreen had a new crack.

Bella still got lost looking for the admissions office — which she discovered was just the room next to the dean’s office. Got a nice once over from the secretary in the process of getting her schedule — the lady was probably judging all her life’s choices, which, yeah, it was well-deserved — and somehow, after that excruciating awkward exchange, Bella lost her stupid slip.

She fucking misplaced her stupid-ass piece of schedule in under seven minutes. 

She was close to saying _‘Fuck this shit I’m out’_ when she bumped — literally _bumped —_ in this tall bloke called Michel? Mick? Marcus? 

Well, he helped her find her class, History, and _finally_ , things were looking up, because she managed to slip into class so fast that the teacher barely glanced at her. 

“New kid? Isabella Swan? — All heads turned to Bella, she scrunched her face and slid down on her seat, mumbled “Bella is fine” — Eh, ok. Don’t be late next time. Now, as I was saying…”

And Bella just dropped her head on the table and groaned for the remaining time of the class.

* * *

**Monday - Lunch Break**

Truth be told, bumping into Millan? Malcolm? It had turned out to be quite the lucky shot for Bella. Yeah, sure, he was blatting obvious with his flirting — gross — but he also knew the whole school and offered to show her around. 

Also, bonus: she got to sit with his friends during lunch break, which could be a total hell when you are the new kid. 

So, Bella found herself picking at some lackluster chicken finger while her new appointed group of friends told her all the dirt of Forks, Washington. 

There was Mike Newton — _finally_ , she got around to remembering his name — with his blonde hair and dimpled smile. Tall, athletic and apparently a big deal around the school…well, as big of a deal as one could be in a high-school with 50 people or so. He mentioned five times he was in the basketball team which prompted this exchange :

“Do you guys have a softball team?” Bella asked, munching on some fries. 

“Oh, we have a baseball one during summer…but it’s not mixed, like, I don’t think girls can play on it.” Mike answered, eager to impress “ I played baseball last summer, maybe I’ll go back to it.”

“Oh, bummer” Bella ignored the rest of his rambling. No softball for her this term then, crap.

Across from Bella sat Eric, kinda nerdy and cute, bad haircut and all. He kept pushing his glasses to the tip of his nose and was _way_ too excited to be on Bella’s Biology class…but cute, in a harmless kind of way.

Then, there were the girls. On Bella’s left was Angela, which she could tell would be her fave new friend pretty quickly. She was tall, pretty with wavy hair and brown skin the colour of mocha. She kept giving sarcastic imputes on whatever the boys were rambling on and Bella found herself snickering more than once. Cool chick, they would do well with each other.

Last was Jessica. Preppy girl if Bella ever saw one. Soft brown hair, pushed behind her ears, nice eyes, piercing on the nose and a plunging neckline. She spoke too much with her hands and was clearly not afraid to share all the gossip — Bella knew a bunch of these girls in her last school, they were harmless…as long as they were on your side, that is. 

Her obvious crush on Mike was painful to watch though — if she flicked her hair one more time Bella was pretty sure she would end up with a serious neck injury.

“So, Bella, how are you finding Forks so far? We must look like a bunch of rednecks to you.” Jessica prompted, wiggling her eyebrows. 

Bella shrugged “ Seems cool enough for me. Kinda wet though, I’m glad it is sunny today.” 

“Yeah, don’t get too used to it.” Eric added from the other side of the table, slurping on his smoothie “ It’s a freaking miracle we got a sunny day in the middle of autumn.”

“I’ll keep that in mind” Bella smiled. She wasn’t expecting anything different than terrible weather for 90% of the time, she had spent more than one summer vacation with Charlie before and even then the weather was always…well, crappy.

“Oh, we should definitely hit the beaches this weekend! It’s supposed to be warm” Jessica scrunched her nose while looking at her phone, checking the weather app. “ Well, warm with clouds, but you know, it’s good enough around here.”

“Yeah, Bella, you should definitely come.” Angela smiled gently to her as if to say ‘we are really cool folks if you stick with us long enough’. 

And thus was that Bella somehow, on her first day of school went from being completely clueless to being adopted by a group of apparently ‘cool’ friends.

By the end of the day, she’s already on their group chat and had accepted everyone on her Instagram. Eager kids, yeah? But maybe if Mike saw all the rainbows all over her page he would get the hint. 

Now if only she could get a job, things would be A+…

* * *

**And we on to Wednesday— Lunch Break**

Bella picked her jaw out of the floor and scrambled to where her new friends were sitting. She basically threw her tray on the table, fries flying everywhere. 

“Guys, what the _fuck?”_ Bella risked a glance over her shoulder and oh yes, no doubt about it, those five _perfect_ kids were all lounging around some far-out table away from everyone. “ How the fuck nobody told celebrities were studying here? Freaking models?”

“What nowt?” Eric was in the process of shoving fries down his throat so Bella got a nice view of semi-digested potatoes around his mouth. Angela took the liberty of punching his shoulder “Dude! Disgusting!”

“What are you talking about. Bells?” Asked Jessica, across the table. Ok, so one two days later Bella was already _Bells._ She could roll with it, no biggie…

“What the…what am I talking about?” Bella jabbed her thumb over her shoulder “ I’m talking about the Abercrombie and Fitch catalog over there, what’s up with that?”

“Oh, the Cullens…” Mike answered rolling his eyes like he was bored with the subject already. Honestly, did the dude have eyes? Did he see the blonde girl?

“Oh! Yes, the Cullens —Forks best-kept secret.” Jessica was grinning like the cat who got the cream and got to eat the canary as dessert. She leaned over the table, prompting Bella to approach “ They are pretty, right? Really nice to look at them.”

Bella nodded eagerly. They weren’t _pretty_ , they were what Hollywood made money _off_. Shinning and perfect. And that _blonde._

Bella risked another glance over her shoulder and there was blonde girl, long legs clad in tight jeans, stretched under the table, followed by a grey sweater that should not look that good on anyone. Oh god.

“Yeah, don’t get your hopes up.”

It was like a bucket of the coldest water on the planet had just dropped over her. What now? No hopes? Like…null?

“Could someone explain to me why — what I can only presume are Victoria’s Secret's under 18 models — are hanging around in this cafeteria?” Bella hissed at them. Yesterday Eric had taken the time to explain the cafeteria’s entire menu to Bella, but _this_ didn’t need to mention?! _Really_? 

Most of the menu was chicken nuggets goddammit!

“Their parents always get them out camping or hiking when the sun comes out.” Mike explained, sounding bored already “They were probably traveling these past two days…”

“And nobody told you because I just love giving the Cullen’s Introductory Course!” Jessica exclaimed, almost climbing over the table in excitement. Angela was nodding along at her side, slurping on a smoothie ‘ This is your moment, Jess’. 

“Ok, woman, go on then,” Bella said, partly impressed and partly terrified of the fire in Jessica’s eyes. The girl loved her gossip alright. “Tell me about the local Kardashians.”

“Ok, ok, you paying attention?” — Bella was ready to kill the lady, truly — “So, first, you see the one on the right? Cutie pixie-cut and clothes to _die_ for? Ok, that’s Alice Cullen.”

Bella looked back to the Cullen specified. She was the shortest of them all, one would say tiny, but no less beautiful because of that. She had this purposely wild short hair, chestnut and smooth looking, which made her look like some fancy french lady from french town…the french were always stylish, right? She was pale, delicate and there was this spark on her eyes that spoke mischief. 

So cute, Alice…

“She’s the nicest one, I think I have talked to her more than three or two times, which is a lot around here.” Jessica smiled like she had a secret “Done drooling? Ok, moving on, next to her is her boyfriend Jasper Hale.” 

Bella did a double-take and almost snapped her neck.

“What the fuck now? Aren’t they family and shit?”

“Oh, yes! They were all adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Cullen. Carlisle Cullen, father figure extraordinaire, is a doctor in town. Gorgeous guy, mind you.” Jessica was grinning so hard right now that Bella was afraid her teeth would fall off or something equally worrying. “ So, yeah, they are adopted but also date each other. Freaky, right?”

Bella choked a little. It was…weird, to say the least. But if they were adopted as adults it was like…less weird? Somehow? Also, Jessica was being a bit bitchy about it and Bella wouldn’t give her more fuel to her gossip.

“I mean if they weren’t raised as brothers and shit,” Bella said, trying to appear nonchalant. She gestured to Jessica. “ Come on, Jasper and who’s next?”

“Not flipped? That’s alright” Jessica sounded disappointed but moved on.”So, the next nice-looking Cullen is Jasper. I swear I have never seen him speak, but I’m told he’s in a bunch of AP classes and— ‘ She’s told because she ain’t in any!’ ‘ _Shut up_ Eric, go choke on a nugget’ —“ _So_ , he’s a possible genius. Who knows?”

Honestly, Bella could totally understand Jasper not wanting to talk to anyone in the early morning. She was off the same disposition. 

He was a good looking guy, pale like his girlfriend —weirdly enough— but lanky and tall. His hair was like honey and had this wavy texture to it. He had his hands shoved in his pockets and didn’t seem cold wearing only a pale-blue flannel shirt. The boy had a charm to him or an aura like he could handle himself in a fight; like he was dangerous. 

There were probably girls falling over themselves to talk to him daily. And he had Tinkerbell by his side on the regular…fucking lucky chap.

“So, Jasper is Alice’s boy and also, Rosalie’s biological brother” Jessica _finally_ pointed out the blonde girl, the one Bella was truly curious about. “ Great gene-pool, right?”

_Rosalie._ Bella tested the name in her mind. Rose. 

She took the liberty to fully check her out and was surprised to her staring back. Oh god…Rosalie Hale had the most amazing hazel eyes. Almost golden. 

Bella risked a little wave and got a sneer back followed by her fully turning around. Ok…abort mission.

“Yeah, that’s the usual result of trying to interact with Rosalie Hale.” Jessica snickered “ She’s a total bitch.” 

“ _Hey!”_ Bella said before she could stop herself, something hot and furious sitting on her chest.” The girl has never seen me before, I think she has the right to think I’m a creep for waving out of fuck nowhere.” 

Jessica was shocked into silence, Bella hadn’t been loud but it still sounded harsh. 

“Yeah, whatever then…” Jessica got over herself pretty quickly, noticing she was losing her crowd. “ Maybe she isn’t such a bitch, after all, seeing as the hunk over there is her boyfriend, Emmet.”

Bella felt nauseous all of sudden. It was like the colour of the day had melted off. Rosalie had a _boyfriend_.

It wasn’t like Bella thought she had much of a shot anyway but her heart hurt the same. 

It felt like those minute-long crushes you would get on the bus or subway. When you pictured this whole situation where you would start up a conversation with this person who just entered your life, just for all to come crashing down when they hopped off on the next stop.

It ended before it ever began, really, but it left a ghost-ache all the same. 

God, Bella needed a smoke so bad.

“Cool. Nice. Hey, can I take a rain-check on this Cullen course?” Bella blabbed grabbing her backpack from the floor. “ Give me a C minus, whatever.”

“ Hey! You alright?” Angela sounded concerned but Bella was already shoving her wallet in her backpack pocket and throwing it over her shoulder “Though we were going together to the next class?”

“It’s cool. I just need some air” — Bella pointed to the door leading to the patio — “ I’ll just…yeah. I’ll meet you in class alright?”

“What? Aren’t you impressed by our residents Targaryens?” Mike wiggled his eyebrows, the dumbass. Angela made a point to throw her leftover fries at him. 

“ Geez, woman! What was that for?!”

“That was such a shitty thing to say, Mike, can’t you just shut up?” Angela hissed while Eric nodded along.

But Bella had already walked out. 

* * *

**Biology Class - After Lunch Break**

Two fags and a song by The Cure later, and Bella was ready to admit that maybe she overacted a bit. 

Who cares if the most beautiful angel to have walked earth had a bf? Like, did she honestly thought that _the model_ would be single? Or gay? Or the impossible combination of sing _and_ gay? Yeah, right. 

Bella threw the butt of her last cig under the bleachers where she had been seated. She discovered the spot on her second day and had already decided it was the best place in the whole school. No nerds, no noise. 

Just some open-air, wooden benches, and the odd stoner or two. If she could sneak there at least once a week — right, once a day — she could chill for the rest of the school year.

The bell had hung a while ago so she made a point of power walking trough the halls —missing a turn or two but nobody’s perfect — and _finally_ finding her way. 

Biology, was it? She was pretty sure it was something like that. Biology or science or frogs…

Bella barged into the classroom where the professor was, lucky enough, looking at some paper or another. Angela was at the back but Eric already sat proudly beside her, so Bella just threw her shit to the only available table, besides some boy or another. 

Said boy took a _weirdly_ deep breath when she sat down. Like he was having an asthma attack or something. Bella decided that was a time as good as any to look over at him. 

Oh… _fuck_ , a Cullen. He was a _Cullen_.

Bella was sure of it. He had this soft-looking hair, in this tousled style and with a copper tint to it, copper and gold. High-cheekbones, pale skin, perfect nose, all over a perfect _face._

_Yeah yeah, definitely Cullen material._

And he looked like he was having a panic attack? 

“Dude, are you feeling well…?” Bella tried to ask and reach out to him but the boy just squirmed more and got up abruptly. 

“Sorry…I… yeah, I got to go…” He said everything in a low and rushed whisper, stumbling over his words. He sent Bella a _look_ over his shoulder before mumbling whatever to the professor and getting the hell out of the class. 

Yikes. Was that her fault somehow? Maybe he heard her gossiping around in the cafeteria…? Or..she was pretty sure she showered this morning? Was she smelling funny? What the…

Her phone vibrated somewhere in her pocket and Bella fished it out. Angela had sent a message. 

**‘what was that dude. did you scare the cullen?’**

**‘didn’t say a word. i think he was feeling weird or smth.’**

**‘you really got it out for the cullens, yeah?’**

Bella rolled her eyes and discreetly showed Angela the finger. She didn’t do anything and even if she would do anything it wouldn’t be to bronze-boy. 

After 15 minutes of class, Bella resigned herself to the fact that bronze-boy wouldn’t come back and that she had, somehow, made an ass of herself without even opening her mouth. Experiments were handed out — something to do with mixing A and B but not exploding anything — and Bella hunched over her notebook and started scribbling down notes, she figured she could at least give them to bronze-boy after-class. 

She was so focused she almost had a heart attack when said bronze-boy appeared from out of thin air at her side. 

“Jesus!” Bella hissed out, dropping her pen in the process. The Cullen looked apologetic and bent over to pick it up, then proceed to go over to his seat next to her. “ Sorry, wow, I was out of it…you feeling better?”

He looked at Bella like she was this really fascinating experiment that could blow-up at any moment. She felt like she was under a microscope…with golden eyes and skin so smooth that when he frowned it barely made any wrinkles. 

Bronze-boy looked like he was really considering her question before slowly saying 

“Yes, I’m better now.” He enunciated every other like Bella couldn’t understand proper English or something, and he had an accent too, almost British. “ I’m sorry.” he made a vague gesture towards the desk “ About before, I was out of it too.”

Bella nodded along. This was quickly becoming the weirdest interaction she ever had with another human being and she used to hang out with a _lot_ of stoners — you wouldn’t believe the kind of shit came out of those guys. 

She decided she was better off just rolling with it.

“It alright, man. I used to have panic attacks all over the place. I get it” She said and extended her hand “ Could I have my pen back though? I was kinda writing down our assignment.”

The Cullen finally noticed he was still holding Bella’s pen and almost fell over himself to give it back. Bella gave him a small smirk — apparently, having Hollywood’s levels of beauty didn’t excuse you of being awkward as fuck. She could roll with that. 

“Sorry, sorry.” He mumbled more to himself than to her, then, shaking his head, he reached out under the sit for his notebook. “So…yeah, what are we doing? Experiments ?”

“Yeah, here, take a look.” She pushed over her notes to him. “ I’m Bella, by the way, Bella Swan.”

“Chief Swan’s daughter.” He said like he already knew it, which, fair, everybody seemed to know that tidbit of information. He then noticed what he said and almost — honest to God almost — offered his hand to shake, but then he seemed to remind that he wasn’t in the 1900s anymore. 

Weird, if not endearing, kid.

“I’m Edward,” Bronze-boy said, running his hand through his copper locks. “ Edward Cullen.”

“Nice to meet you, Edward Cullen,” Bella answered, smiling. She pointed at his shirt. “Nice shirt by the way. They rock.”

Edward looked down at his faded shirt of The Pixies and smiled for the first time. This nice smile, full of perfect white teeth. 

They hit it off fucking _well_ from then on. 

* * *

Bella was walking down the hallway with Edward at her side. She guessed they were friends now or something. 

He acted like everything she said was this big fucking surprise, even though it was basically on the merits of The Pixies over The Cure — and honestly, she wasn’t even being _that_ original, he should see her when they got to R.E.M — but he listened on anyways with a huge smile. 

Maybe he was really deprived of talking to people about music around here? Nobody tried to approach them as they walked…that’s not true, she got a little wave from Angela and a bunch of hand-signs from Jessica that Bella could only guess the meaning to.

But…she was the fucking new kid and two people talked to her. 

He was not new, he actually told that was his second year at Forks, _and_ he was unbelievably hot. Everybody risked glances but nobody tried to talk to him, maybe there was some unspoken rule to _not_ speak to the Cullens and Bella had just broken it?

Well, fuck it.

They were left unperturbed until they reached the parking lot, it was kind empty still, with people taking their time to get out. Edward had said he had some cool iPod to show her so Bella had agreed to go over to his car.

A fucking Prius. Bella almost laughed out loud when she saw it — yeah, she drove an ancient truck who should be in a museum somewhere — but a Prius was so _lame_.

She was biting her cheek to comment on it but was beaten to it when the maniac-pixie girl who looked like a french expatriate came skipping about to talk to them. Alice, her name was Alice.

“Hey, Edward, we were almost leaving without you.” She had this lyrical voice that made Bella insides melt, high-pitched but soft somehow. And _god,_ she was so beautiful.

Alice — Bella was pretty sure her name was Alice, one could never accuse Bella of forgetting a hot girl’s name — turned to smile to her. 

“And you must be Bella, I’m so happy to meet you.” Alice’s smile was so sweet it almost gave Bella a tooth-ache. 

“Can you guys hurry up already, some of us have places to be!” 

Bella felt she knew the owner of that voice in her bones, it was a raspy sound, almost sexy. And it could only belong to Bella’s most recent crush: Rosalie. 

Looking over Alice’s shoulder, not far from them at all, and casually bending over the window of a Jeep there she was in all her golden glory. Perfect face scrunched up in a sneer, she was close enough that Bella could only focus on her eyes — this whirlpool of molten gold, brilliant. 

And which suddenly turned…black?

Unnoticed to Bella, Alice and Edward exchanged worried glances between them, before Edward grabbed Bella by the shoulders and turned her around. 

“Hey, Bella I’m so sorry but I remembered something, I really need to go now.” He said that in one breath while dragging her as far as possible then turning right back around. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Behind him, the Jeep with Rosalie inside was already screeching its tires out of the parking lot.

When Bella finally noticed what was going on, she was already alone in the parking lot. 

_What the actual fuck?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this beginning is a drag to write, I want them all to have fun together already. Also, Mike is a jealous kid but just a kid overall.


	3. The Ups and Downs of a Taco Joint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bella's trying to get over the fact the most perfect angel disappeared from Earth (at least she left her doofus brother behind)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, hello, sorry for the delay, not having a Beta keeps things slow on my end. Anyways, some context and scenario setting. Some dynamics need to be established and Bella needs a job like all of us. I hope you enjoy!

Bella’s was really good at pretending she didn’t care that Rosalie Hale, the current lead actor in most of her dreams — and some of her everyday thoughts —, had magically disappeared from the face of Forks, Washington. For almost _ten_ days now.

Nope, Bella didn’t care the least bit. 

Also, she kind ran of excuses to ask Edward about his sister without sounding slightly obsessed (A.K.A maniac.)

So, Bella busied herself in the last week with getting in the flow of homework, cliques, figuring out which classes were chill to skip and which weren’t, and building a nice report with Charlie — basically fixing diner for him — so she could eventually cash in later.

Oh, also, social media. _Very_ important to update her Instagram, Tumblr and what else. She had an online reputation to keep. 

And was while trying to take an artsy pic of the smoke she was blowing out that something had suddenly occurred to her. 

“Hey, Eddy.” She called out to the boy that sat next to her. He turned his head almost immediately.

“Don’t call me Eddy, Bella.” Edward snickered, pushing lightly on Bella’s shoulder. 

They had build up a routine of sorts in the days that passed: They would hangout during free periods and Bella would alternate lunchtime between hanging with Edward and her other friends.

It was an understatement to say Jessica Stanley had something close to a cardiac-arrest when she figured Bella and Edward were tentative friends. She screeched about how God clearly had favorites and how Bella was “carrying the hope and dreams of all the female student-body”. 

Admittedly, Bella was impressed with the girl’s dedication to speak nonsense.

Jessica eventually calmed down when Bella assured she had no interest besides _friendship_ with the Cullen boy —which the girl didn’t believe at all but it was the thought that counted. Angela was nice enough to buy Bella a smoothie as a peace-offer. 

The only other person who had a weirder response to Bella’s and Edward’s friendship was Eddy’s sister, Alice. The first time Edward shooed her away from their hangout spot — Bella thought better than getting in the way of it, as far as she understood, siblings need to figure shit out themselves — Alice stomped her foot so hard there were indents on the bleachers. 

Fucking weird how that small girl could pack such a punch. 

But with all of _that_ mess solved, Edward and Bella were free to just…hang. 

Which led Bella to figure out some things about her new buddy :

  1. He was the shyest boy — who somehow never blushed—and the awkwardest mess Bella had ever seen. It was endearing. 



  1. He was also some kind of musical genius. He knew everything about every dumb band to ever play on Earth. He had an opinion on every genre, chorus, video clip — you name it, he had not only listened to it but also formed an opinion about it.  

  2. Which led to him also being a bigoted _ass_ when it came to modern music. It was like the was perpetually stuck in the 70s to 80s range and everything after that was ‘pop nonsense’. He probably still kept his Blockbuster fidelity card and his little tape player—The prick.   

  3. Which brought up the weirdest fact ever: Dude was M.I.A. in any social-media. Facebook? Not on it. Snapchat? Never heard of it. Spotify? Not even a profile with private playlists, he just carried a bunch of IPods around…



But Instagram? Ding-ding, jackpot! 

Which led Bella to this particular moment under the bleachers. 

“Eddy, Eddy…we proper friends, right?” She nudged him again, poking his calf with her foot. 

“Please don’t call me Eddy.” He answered, faking exhaustion. He was leaning on one of the bleacher's steel pillars, with one earphone on and the other left dangling, and meticulously tearing apart one of Bella’s cigarets. 

(Since he first saw Bella smoking he got into this stupid habit of asking for a cig, taking _one-fucking-drag,_ and then destroying it. When Bella said something along the lines of “These are expensive, you fucking dumb-ass”, he just shrugged off and just answered “Less for you then, I guess.” 

Bella thought it was annoying — controlling — but somewhat sweet and just let it go.)

“So…me and you, proper friends, right?”

“Yes, I think so… why?”

“You know proper friends have each other in social media, right?”

“I don’t know what you mean by that…”

“I mean what I mean. It’s 21st century, dude. Everybody is on somewhere.”

“I guess…but I wouldn’t know about that.”

Bella just typed furiously on her phone and shoved the result into Edwards's face. The screen, though cracked, showed his very private Insta account, with somewhat 70 followers and a total black profile photo.

“Just follow me back already, dude!” She fake-pleaded. Honestly, she felt like a winner for having figured out his obviously _very_ secret Insta account. She had ‘followed’ him and waited patiently to be ‘followed’ back but it was close to a whole _week_ now.

Edward's reaction was nothing like Bella expected. His face turned into confusion, then blank as he carefully pushed the cellphone from his face. 

“Well, how did you go about finding that?” He said in a monotone. “ I thought I hid it pretty well since the last time someone found it.”

Bella felt in her gut that she had fucked up. It was supposed to be a funny thing. 

Honestly, she had a hard time letting go of secret stuff. Since she was an awkward 13-year-old and baby gay, she felt like she didn’t fit anywhere — none of the easy social finesse that everyone else seemed to have. 

She turned to the obvious alternative: the internet. Like kids back in the 90s would hangout outside punk bar’s alleys, Bella would hangout in Forums, communities, chats, and such. She was building malware and seeding torrents before _high school_. 

Nobody fucking cared if she was awkward or spaced out constantly on the big wide web. Nobody gave a fuck. If you could code, insert a funny meme, or hack a game, you were in. 

Online-life gave Bella her first real-friends, her first community, her ex-girlfriend (yikes), and whatever else she was lacking at the time. Confidence online bled out to real-life, and by 15 she was popular enough.

Online-life also gave Bella total disregard for people’s private bits. If something was hidden, it was just waiting to be found — and, yeah, most people didn’t take well to that. She figured it was 50/50 and went for it. 

It was _really_ hard to find anything on the Cullens though. She came across at least two fakes and one profile followed by a bunch of people from the school dedicated to just say nasty shit about them — like dumb and offensive memes — which she promptly took down.

She had to go deep in the open HTML to filter everything and get to Edward — she also probably found Rosalie’s profile, but she stayed clear from that one. 

“I’m just good with computers.” Bella shrugged, putting her phone slowly back in her pocket“ Sorry if that freaked you out.”

Edward took a big breath and looked down at his hands. 

“It’s just…we, me and my family, are _very_ private people. We are also very aware of everyone talking shit on us.” He continued gesturing back to the school behind them “ I just don’t want to give them any ammunition.”

“I…yeah sure, but you can trust me.” Bella poked him again but Edward didn’t quite react “ Right?”

“Yeah, I know.” He answered, still not making eye-contact. Even though he agreed with Bella, he made no gesture to pick his phone and do anything about it.

After an eerie silence that made Bella get chills all over, Edward cleared his throat and got up. 

“I promise I’ll think about it, yeah?” He mumbled. Bella figure it was fair enough, she clearly stepped over the line. “ Also, I think you should buy some of that protective glass for your phone, it looks awful.”

“Those are for pussies, dude.” She laughed it off but truly she had burned through so many of those she really didn’t see the point — let the phone die an honourable death. “And Eddy?”

“Don’t call me, Eddy.”

“ I took down those stupid profiles…nobody’s talking shit on you so soon.” 

Edward smiled a bit, a small twitch of lips, but Bella knew he appreciated all the same.

He helped her get up and they went off to class. 

* * *

Bella _finally_ got a job interview. 

Charlie had recommended her to a friend of his that owned a ‘swell diner down on 5th’ — his words, not hers.

Bella thought he had used that word too freely. 

The diner — The Bitter Taco — was more of a hole in the wall bar than a ‘swell diner’. The place had an incompressible mix-up of styles, looking half like a dive bar and half like a retro café with neon lights. It was small, dark, with sticky counters, and almost empty if not for a teen in the back babysitting some brats. 

Bella kinda liked it. 

Mr. Jones was playing on the background as Bella found herself being interview by a scary — albeit hot — La Push girl, no older than 18, with cool piercings on her ears and a hip hairstyle, full of layers. Bella wanted to be her friend immediately. 

“So… you are Chief’s Swan spawn?” The girl, Leah, asked while scanning her eyes over Bella’s curriculum. 

“Yeah, I guess I am,” Bella answered and shuffled around on the uncomfortable wood stool.

“Figures you would be the girl Jacob Black was on and on about that week.” Leah snickered “ I’m Leah Clearwater, by the way. We probably played around as little kids but I can’t say I remember that — no hard feelings?”

“ None taken.” Bella shrugged off and smiled back at the girl. 

Leah stopped pretending she was analyzing Bella’s CV and crossed her arms, leaning over the counter towards Bella. 

“ Honestly, you having some experience almost makes you too qualified to work here. This place” — she made a wide gesture — “ is an absolute mess.”

“ Do you see that plaque over there? — Leah pointed to a far-out frame with some page printed out of the web, it looked completely out of place in this supposedly retro bar. Bella could not see what was written but Leah solved the mystery pretty quickly. — That is our one-star review on Yelp.”

“Now, you see, we didn’t even have a Yelp page. I’m not even sure we are on Google Maps at this point. What I mean is, someone came here and got so pissed off at everything that they went through the trouble of creating a Yelp page _just_ so they could give it a one-star review.”

“ Well…” Bella smirked a little “ This person sounds like a proper prick.”

Leah quirked her eyebrow and her mouth opened slowly in this Cheshire cat smile — full of shiny white teeth. 

“ Yeah, they are, aren’t they?” Leah commented, “ I’m almost sure it was the owner’s ex-wife but I don’t want to assume anything.”

Bella nodded along and they both stayed silent for a beat. And then they both burst into laughter.

“But yeah, if you want it, the job is yours,” Leah concluded, cleaning laughing tears from the corners of her hazel eyes. “ I just have one very important question for you.”

“Shoot,” Bella said confidently. Until then it hadn’t really felt like an interview at all but she was ready to spill whatever bullshit Leah wanted to hear. She _refused_ to take Mike’s offer to work with him, spending time with him as a group was enough — one-on-one time would be too much for her brain cells. 

“Do you like tacos?”

“Sure, absolutely.”

“And do you like coffee, like dark, bitter coffee?”

“ Yes, I guess…”

“ And do you think…” Leah raised one eyebrow, expectantly “Tacos and coffee go well together?”

“Ugh…” Bella was ready to say ‘yes, sure, who doesn’t like some fish tacos with coffee to wash it all down’ but something in her gut told her Leah expected the truth. So Bella just said “ Not really, no.”

“ Great! You are hired.” Leah gave Bella her biggest smile yet and hopped off her stool. “Come on, let me show you the kitchen, Ian is back there.”

Bella remained stunned in place, the clear neon sign written “The Bitter Taco” blinked a pale pink cooler, and the little taco and coffee mug design right beneath it shined and mocked her with their light.

The menu also stood proudly on top of the counter, with the first combo clearly stating ‘2 tacos and coffee promo’.

“Dude, _nobody_ thinks tacos go well with coffee. It makes no fucking sense.” Leah said matter of factly, then she jabbed her thumb to the kitchen behind the counter. “ Now come on, you gotta meet your actual boss.”

Bella followed along in a dazed. Everybody in this town was nuts. 

* * *

Bella was employed now and decided to celebrate smoking a fag beside her truck before going home. 

After her impromptu interview, she went to the kitchen to meet her ‘boss’ Ian, who was a tall blonde wearing a light-green beanie that was hiding his curls, with a soft face full of freckles, and a joint dangling from his mouth. Not sanitary at all.

A sweet-smelling smoke covered the room and Bella felt a little high just from stepping inside.

After making sure she wasn’t a ‘narc’ — being the daughter of a cop was doing wonders for her reputation, she could tell — Ian introduced himself. He was the nephew of the owner, Mr. Joeff, and he took care of the cooking and baking during weekdays. On weekends, he got a break and bartended half-period. 

He also baked some weed-goodies on the side and sold them upfront. Apparently, that was Fork's best-known secret, and what kept the diner from bankruptcy. Well, that and Mr. Joeff loyal friends who loved some fish tacos after-hours. 

Bella nodded along to everything and by the end of it, Leah ripped off the paper schedule tapped to the wall, wrote down her number, gave it to Bella, and informed Bella her next shift was on Tuesday after class. 

That’s how Bella found herself smoking the haziness away while texting around. Shit was still freaky with Edward, so she opted to text her group of friends to share the news. 

**The forks gang - group chat :**

**Bells: guess who’s the newest employee in forks town**

**Jess S.: wow you go, girl, where you working at?**

**Angie: Sweet, Bella!**

**Nerd Eric: yay bells! i call dips on whatever goodies you get out of it**

**Bells: y’all know the bitter taco, down on 5th? i’m their newest bitch**

**Jess S : *is typing***

**Angie : *is typing***

**Nerd Eric: wow that place uhn…**

**Angie: Yeah, it’s very…well-located**

**Jess S: yes! and their tacos are really…good?**

Bella snickered out loud. It seemed like her newest cash flow had an _awesome_ reputation.

**The forks gang - group chat :**

**mike dumbass: cool, ain’t the bitter taco that bar that is a front to selling weed?**

**Jess S: …**

**Angie: …**

**Nerd Eric: lol yeah**

**mike dumbass: do you get an employee discount or smth?**

**Bells: sure do mikey, sure do**

**mike dumbass: nice**

Bella was on to a cool year. She could just tell. 

If only Rosalie Hale would come back from the dead, everything would be peachy. 


	4. Enter, Rosalie Hale.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bitch's back, she's sweet though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha! Rosalie is here!!!

Rosalie Hale was back in town. 

Rosalie Hale was back, specifically, in Bella Swan’s Literature Class. 

Rosalie Hale was back and staring _at_ Bella Swan with a perfect arched eyebrow and pursing perfect full lips. 

The thing was Bella believed she was once again late to class, and because she believed she was late to class, she failed to check her phone. If she _did_ check her phone, she would find Edward’s message glaring back at her with the words :

**Eddy Boy:** **Good Morning, Bella! My sister is back in town, I think you share a class with her on the first period, I told her she could sit beside you, that you are very nice, and won’t say anything stupid.**

**Eddy Boy: Please don’t say anything stupid or she will kill me.**

Bella was so ready to say something stupid. So, so ready…but Rosalie had other plans. 

“Get off my dick?” Rosalie asked, her voice rough and frosty. Can voices be frosty? Well, hers certainly was. She leaned back on her chair casually, like she had just inquired about the weather or something. 

“What…?” Bella was stunned, her backpack hanging loosely from her shoulder and treating to fall on the floor. The class was still half-empty — she wasn’t _actually_ late, for once — but the few idiots who were hanging there were definitely paying attention to this train-wreck of an interaction. 

“ Your shirt.” Rosalie pointed at Bella’s chest. “ The Beastie Boys, it has ‘get off my dick’ written on the back.”

Bella proceeded to twist herself like a _dumbass_ trying to spot the words on her back, she was pretty sure the shirt had those words on the back in big, yellow letters but… She stopped her contortions when she heard someone — she was pretty sure it was Eric, the jerk — snickering in the background. 

“ Can you even walk around school with this kind of shirt?” Rosalie inquired, arms crossed and skeptical. Honestly, Bella was _glad_ the perfect blonde girl was still talking to her…somewhat. 

But Bella's mouth felt dry and full of cotton. She had imagined this moment for the last two weeks, thinking how _cool_ and _chill_ she would be when Rosalie came back. How she would bring her A+ game to impress her. 

She basically imagined every other scenario aside from acting like a complete _idiot_. Couldn’t Bella ever catch a damn break?

Rosalie was still patiently waiting for an answer and Bella, incapable of saying anything, just nodded slowly, making a show of flashing her black hoodie tied to her backpack. 

Rosalie let a soft “Oh” escape — the most perfect little ‘oh’, like seriously. Bella melted inside a little — and turned back to her open book on the table. 

Bella kept standing there, frozen in time, cursing all her life-decisions, until Rosalie looked back at her and then down to the table beside her, making herself pretty clear even to Bella’s slow brain. 

Bella just kind of flopped back on the table, dropping everything around her. She put her head down on the table, between her arms, and groaned in pain. 

Stupid, stupid and _stupid_. 

She fished her cellphone from her back pocket, decided on ripping Edward a new one when she saw his message flashing back at her mockingly. 

**Bells: thanks for the heads up dude**

**Eddy Boy: thumbs up**

**Bells: Edward dont _type_ ‘thumbs up’ you dumbass**

Bella sighed loudly. Eric had also managed to send her a bunch of laughing emojis, digging in the whole humiliation of the episode. 

Bella made up her mind to just stay quiet and pretend she didn’t know English thought the rest of the period….which was a solid plan, truly, but the thing was…

The thing was she couldn’t keep her fucking eyes off Rosalie. Just _couldn’t_.

By the corner of her eye, Bella could see Rosalie’s gold and shiny hair, cascading to the side, her eyes fixated on her notebook and her mouth pursed a little, creating the most adorable dimple. The girl was effortless grace and poise. 

Bella was convinced, really, that if Aphrodite decided to come back to Earth or something, she would look _exactly_ like Rosalie Fucking Hale.

She even _smelled_ good, some mix of flowery perfume and a hint of honey — she made everyone in that godforsaken school smell like damp soil in comparison. 

At the front of the class the teacher, Miss Jacobs, a pretty nice lady, in fact, was drooling on about the next book to be read — throwing little questions here and there. And while hands raised left and right, Rosalie was barely moving her lips, but Bella could figure she was answering everything under her breath — no effort or Google needed.

Bella took a steadying breath and leaned slightly to the side, gulping but going for it, what was even the worse it could happen? Bella was chill, she was cool, she could totally…

“Youresosmart.” Bella blurted out under her breath to an unimpressed Rosalie, who turned slowly to her, raised her eyebrow, and then turned back to write something on her notebook.

(Bella died a little inside but nothing she couldn’t handle)

“What now?” Rosalie whispered, not taking her eyes off her pad. Even as a whisper, her voice was a pleasing rough —and Bella felt gayer and gayer by the minute for noticing all these little details about her. 

“I mean…what _I_ mean is, you’re so smart, why are you in this class?” Bella whispered back, sneaking a glance at Miss Jacobs, who was none the wise.

“How can you be so sure of that?” Rosalie answered, not bothering to look at Bella. Her tone was lightly mocking, but not mean —at least, Bella hoped it wasn’t.

“I just mean, you keep answering the questions. I just figured…”

“I could be answering all of them wrong for all you know.”

“I don’t quite think so.”

“How come?”

“Because you don't _act_ like someone who doesn't know the answers.”

Rosalie fell quiet after that. It wasn’t like Bella was a literary genius, it was quite the opposite really, _but_ she could tell when someone was confident enough in what they were saying — and Rosalie was muttering like she knew the answers like the back of her perfectly manicured hand. 

After a minute or two, Rosalie turned to Bella and gestured to Miss Jacobs with a small nod of her head. 

“She’s just nicer than the AP teacher, that’s all,” Rosalie said, her voice small. And Bella felt her stomach twist uncomfortably. 

Because she didn’t need more than 5 days at Forks High to get the rumors that the AP Literature teacher was a total creep, who loomed in hallways and always found a way to ‘casually’ touch girls during class. Angela had warned Bella about it in the second week or so, about how she kept herself to the back of the class and kept her jacket on so she didn’t feel him brushing along her arm and stuff. 

Bella nodded along to what Rosalie said, keeping quiet for the rest of the class. But in her mind, she was already planning a sweet vengeance involving Mr. Crooks’s Facebook and the weirdest porn shit she could find.

* * *

During the lunch break, Bella had to hear Eric retelling her mental shutdown a thousand times, going as far as acting it out. Mike almost snorted his disgusting shake — basketball fall season was coming and he was trying to get in shape by drinking lots of Whey and eating twenty bananas a day — while listening on to Eric. 

Angela said something in the lines of “ You’re all pricks” but she laughed along as well — Bella couldn’t really blame them, it was pretty hilarious. 

And she wasn’t paying that much attention anyway, because right across the cafeteria Rosalie Hale sat along with her brothers and sisters, tucked comfortably under her giant of a boyfriend’s arms. She seemed happy, not quite as bothered with everything around her as Bella remembered from the first week. 

Bella felt happy for her, really, even if looking at Rosalie all chummy with _Emmet_ did weird things to Bella’s stomach.

Bella’s cellphone vibrated on the table with a text from Edward and she reached out to it.

**Eddy Boy: Rosalie said you are ok to sit next to in class !!!!**

**Eddy Boy: That’s a lot coming from her, trust me.**

**Bells: Well, tell her she’s pretty cool too.**

**Eddy Boy : (:**

Raising her head, Bella crossed eyes with Rosalie. The blonde twitch her lips upwards, it was not a smile but it wasn’t a frown either — Bella flashed her all her teeth back.

Fucking _progress._

* * *

The progress was a bust and everything was a lie.

Bella had been skipping class a _lot_ lately. After some days or so of keeping it straight since she arrived at Forks, she went back to lovely bad habits of skipping it all or ditching class between periods. 

And the one she skipped the most? Literature Class. 

Now, she had _legitimate_ reasons to skip that particular class, none of them related to Miss Jacobs who was a pretty nice lady by the way, but really because :

  1. Bella sucked at it. She liked books alright, but more of the kind that dealt with math, and codes, and crazy thrillers, and _less_ with English Classics — even though Miss Jacobs kept all really updated and always, _always_ , let the class know if there was a film about it or not.   
  

  2. Bella made an ass of herself _every time_ she tried to talk to Rosalie. It wasn’t even funny anymore, even Eric pitted her now. 



It was like after the first class they had together, Bella lost all her cool and now, twice a week, she always found a way to say something stupid such as :

_“Wow, Rosalie what cool book you are reading now, which is it?”_

_“It’s the book we are supposed to read for this class.”_

or

_“So, Rosalie how was Alaska? Pretty cold out there?_

_“ How did you know I went to Alaska? Did Edward put you up to this?”_

_“ Uh, no…?”_

So, Bella decided to just don’t show up altogether. It was the best for everyone involved. Did she lose some assignments? Yes, maybe, but she wouldn’t do well at it anyways, she was saving Miss Jacobs the trouble, really…

Also, she got to hang at the Bitter Taco in the mornings, work some shifts and get nice tips from regulars who didn’t care about waiting in at the local Starbucks -- All going towards her goal of fixing her stupid car radio, and maybe her cellphone's screen if there was change to spare.

Thus was one of those fated days where Bella had skipped class altogether and was hanging with Leah behind the counter at the diner, discussing the merits of banana's pudding — and if they could convince Ian to make a recipe of it laced with dope — when none other than Rosalie Hale wandering inside the place. 

Now, be noted Rosalie doesn’t just _wander_ inside anywhere. She struts like she’s the most important model on the runaway, owning the place. And right now she’s owning the _fucking_ Bitte Taco on 5th. 

She just stood there for a second, dressed in tight jeans and a black leather jacket, her hair in a loose braid, looking way too gorgeous to be hanging around the greasy diner. She looked around curiously before making her way to the counter with purpose. 

“Hi, Bella. Hi — here she looked down at Leah’s tag — Hi Leah.” Rosalie said, keeping a safe distance from the corner which was permanently sticky even though Bella scrubbed it every other day. She stared at Bella, her expression neutral “Edward said you worked here.”

Bella stood there in awkward silence trying to scramble for words, she never thought — in a million years— that Rosalie would someday _show up_ at her stupid job. But there she was, blonde and shinning, while Bella had suspicious stains all over her faded black shirt and greasy hair from helping Ian fry tacos for lunch. 

Leah, for her part, looked between them, felt the tension in the room, and did what every good friend would do. 

“Oh, nice to meet you.” Leah said, smiling with way too many teeth, then promptly made her way around the counter “ Bella, I feel like we are missing some sugar, I’ll make a quick run to the market. You make sure to treat our _lovely_ customer right, ok? See ya!”

And then Leah Clearwater basically ran out of the door, throwing a thumbs up over her back. 

By Bella’s side, the said jar of sugar was filled to the brim. _What a colossal prick_.

Now, they were just looking at each other, the diner in total silence aside from the clicking of pans back in the kitchen and the radio playing some soft-rock in the background — Why the air always felt so loaded when it was just Bella and Rosalie? It was like a thick fog that refused to dissipate -- it was suffocating.

“Aren’t you going to offer anything?” Rosalie said, her arms crossed, clearly annoyed with Bella’s inertia.

“Well…do you want anything?” Bella answered, shoving her hands in the pockets of her jeans. Like hell she would give Rosalie the satisfaction of seeing her scrambling around

“Not really, no.” Rosalie refuted, her eyes roaming over the chalkboard menu (the special was carrot cake with fish tacos plus coffee on the side and Bella wouldn’t want it either) “ You are skipping a lot of classes lately.”

“Uh, you noticed that?”

“ You sit _right_ next to me, Bella.”

“Well, yeah…I guess.”

“Did I do anything?”

“What?” Bella’s eyebrow reached her hairline. Was Rosalie…worried? Her tone of voice betrayed nothing but the question still hanged in the air, tempting Bella with all the possibilities.

“Did I do anything to upset you?” Rosalie repeated slowly, like Bella couldn’t understand proper English.

“No, nothing, Rosalie, god no,” Bella answered nervously, hands twisting on top of the counter now. She wished desperately for a smoke, just so she had something to do with her hands. “ I’m just really _bad_ at literature. _Really_ bad. I can’t even read, I’m illiterate, truly.”

And there was that slight twitch of lips again like Rosalie wanted to smile but she couldn’t. Her eyes smiled though, they shined more golden than ever. crinkling at the corners.

“So, I made a bad decision then.” Rosalie was smirking openly, finally approaching the counter. She and Bella were as close as they ever were, practically breathing the same air — Rosalie’s sweet smell filled every breath Bella took. “ Because I just chose you to be my partner in class.”

Bella choked with her own saliva and Rosalie’s smirk bloomed into a full smile. 

“Oh, Rosalie, I’m _so_ sorry.” Bella cried, running her hands over her face. She really outdid herself this time, fucking it up even without showing her face. “ I’m sure Miss Jacobs would let you trade, though. Pretty sure.”

“And why I would want that?” And Rosalie’s inquired, turning her head to the side.

“I mean…to have a good grade? Maybe?”

“I’m smart for us both, Bella, if that worries you.” Rosalie explained, almost shyly, and she didn’t look at Bella as she said: “ And I don’t want anyone else, so if it’s fine by you then it’s fine by me.”

Bella’s throat was as dry as the fucking Sahara Desert. What did you say when the most perfect girl in the Universe chooses you over everyone else? Stupid and awkward you? 

Bella just barely nodded, ready to agree to everything right about now.

“Just make sure to show up to class sometime this week, alright?” Rosalie joked lightly, her voice soft. and warm. So warm that Bella’s insides surely melted — she was crushing so so _hard_.

“I’ll be there!” Bella yelled out as Rosalie was crossing the threshold, and as an afterthought, she added: “And I won’t be late!” 

But Rosalie was already out of the door and of ear-sight. 

* * *

Leah Clearwater returned with a bag of sugar that the diner clearly didn’t need and enough packs of cigarettes to last _weeks —_ Bella gave her the finger the moment she stepped inside and swore to only forgive her traitor friend if she got some cigarets as a bonus. 

The day was slow and the pair just sat in the back of the diner, right next to the dumpster, the concrete wet on their butts. Bella dangled a smoke from her mouth, her still sweaty hands — from her interaction with Rosalie — holding tightly to her cellphone. 

Rosalie Hale’s Instagram account shinned on the cracked screen. 

“Ain’t you going to do anything about that?” Leah said as she pointed to Bella’s screen. 

“I just… isn't it a bit invasive ?” Bella wondered out loud but really thinking ‘ _isn’t it totally pathetic ?_ ’ _desperate? stupid?_

“Invasive? Didn’t she just invaded your workplace?” Leah mocked back, her own smoke almost all burned out. 

They stayed in silence for a while before Leah reached faster then it should be possible and tapped the ‘follow’ button on Bella’s screen. 

And Bella could only stare horrified as the little button glared back at her, mocking her terrible reflexes. 

“ WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT FOR? ”

Bella could never catch a _fucking_ break.


	5. A tale of how Bella ruins everything - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bella will get it right, eventually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, yes, Imma alive y'all. How's everything? Quarantine driving anyone nuts? I will try to answer everyone this week and hopefully/ probably update two more times still -- sorry about the delay, fun times are coming.

Rosalie didn’t follow her back on IG and Bella was fine with it, truly. The Cullens had a weird disposition with technology and social media, she could just tell — she looked into it. They were probably with the mob…or something equally secretive. 

Which was _fine —_ and somewhat _hot,_ even though Bella could not begin to explain why. 

Also, she had more pressing matters to attend like the fact she hadn’t even _bought_ the book she was supposed to be reading for her Literature class — the class in which she was supposed to do a group project with Rosalie _Fucking_ Hale. 

This _fucking_ Saturday.

So, do to aggravating circumstances, she was now maniacally organizing mugs at her job on a Friday afternoon, while Jessica and Angela — God bless them — tried to explain Shakespeare to her between the sounds of pans and pots clashing. 

“I’m doomed.” Bella sagged over the counter, dropping her head between her arms. She was tired, slightly greasy from work, and the desperation to cram an English novel into her skull in less than 2 hours was giving her a nice headache. “ I’m doomed. And I will get an F on this assignment _and_ Rosalie Hale will hate me.”

“Why do you always say it like that?” Jessica frowned at Bella, poking her with a chewed —ew— pen. She was surprisingly good at Literature, which made Bella feel a little guilty for labeling her so early as an airhead. She was smart and dedicated, at least more so than Bella. 

“Say it what like what?” Bella inquired, not following where Jess was going. Honestly, she wasn’t following much of anything really — she hoped whatever Angela was so focused on scribbling down on her notebook was a fantastic summary of whatever the fuck was going on ‘Romeo and Juliet’.

“Say it like that, like _Rosalie Hale_.” Jessica leaned back on the stool, almost falling back, her chestnut hair falling all over her face — she pushed it back behind her ears and continued. “ Why do you say it like that? She’s not a celebrity.”

“I don’t think she’s a celebrity. It’s just a thing I do.”

“You don’t say my full name.”

“ What are you even on about?” 

“I’m just saying it’s weird.”

“You’re weird, Jess.”

“She’s just jealous, you know.” Angela chimed in good-naturedly, jamming her finger on Jessica’s ribs, who had the decency of blushing a bit and muttering a low ‘fuck off’. Angela smiled back and continued “You come strutting in like hot shit and got the Cullens falling all over you.”

Bella choked a bit and Jessica snickered in response. The only Cullen Bella wanted to have falling over her didn’t give her the time of the day — and it would only get worse when Bella managed to fail them both on this stupid class. 

“FYI, I’m _not_ jealous,” Jessica said between her teeth but a quick mocking glance from Angela made her take a deep breath. She fiddled with her pen a bit before continuing “ I mean, maybe I’m a tiny itty bit — another mocking snort from Angela — Shut up Angie! What I meant to say is that I tried to talk to them a thousand times and they were polite, for sure, but they never _liked_ me.”

Bella suddenly felt bad for the girl, she saw insecurity, something Bella understood well. And there’s nothing wrong with Jess, yeah she was loud and over the top, which probably clashed wonders with the quiet Cullen Clan… but she was cool all the same. At least Bella thought so. 

And that’s why Bella opened her best little grin to her fellow brunette and said :

“Well, I like you, Jessica Stanley.”

Jess had the decency to full-on blush, her cheeks a pretty pink. Angela ‘awed’ at her side, but the other girl recovered quickly and sent Bella her playful smile. 

“Right back at you, Bella Swan.” 

There was a lull after that, a nice kind of silence, where Bella felt weirdly warm inside. It lasted less than a minute. 

“It’s sweet that you guys are bonding while I’m burning my brains over here,” Angela mumbled while ripping three pages off her notebook and shoving it towards Bella. “Here ya go, Swan, a nice summary of Shakespeare's famous tragedy.”

Bella almost cried in gratitude, climbing over the counter to half-hug and half push Angela of her stool. 

“You’re a proper _angel_ , Angela, sent by whatever gods still help me around! I could kiss you!”

“Lord, please don’t”

“I can give you free coffee for one month!”

“That’s infinitely better, thank you.”

Bella finally let — a very flustered Angela - go. Bella fumbled around the pages, her hands shaking. Here was the salvation to not act like a total ass in front of Rosalie Hale. 

God fucking bless. 

“Don’t I get anything for giving Angela a lift here and sharing my notes as well?” Jessica questioned, crossing her arms and lifting an eyebrow with expectation. 

“You get free tacos, how about it?” Bella answered, not taking her eyes off the pages. There were a lot of difficult words all over, she needed to study these ASAP.

“Ew…” Jessica said to no one in particular, then “ Make them fish tacos.”

“Sure will, Jessica Stanley, sure will.”

* * *

It was 3:00 AM and Bella was back at her bedroom feeling enormously stressed out. 

She had finished her shift, thanking the girls properly with large cups of coffee, and got back home at the end of the afternoon. 

Charlie was out on a fishing trip for the whole weekend, accompanying Jacob’s dad. He had been nervous in regards to leaving Bella alone — like he thought she still was 12 or something — but she managed to convince him to just go out and about like he was used too. 

He was happy among his trouts and Bella was free to freak the fuck out by herself —which she was. 

The girl had read the summary left by Angela somewhat 30 times, she had a search around the web the most frequent questions, she even had a free online copy and printed out the first chapters. Her brain was close to frying itself but the content wouldn’t sink in. 

Bella couldn’t get over the fact that Romeo was a spoiled _fuckboi_ and everybody could use a thousand years of therapy — also, who takes a 14-year old _that_ seriously?

And even though Bella’s teacher wanted original thoughts and a modern parallel, the brunette wasn’t so dense as to think Miss Jacobs would accept Bella calling Romeo a _little bitch_.

Even though he _was_.

On top of that, there was Rosalie Hale to consider. She would think Bella was as thick as a brick, as shallow as a puddle…as, well, plain dumb. 

Yeah, Bella had a huge crush on Rosalie Hale — sue her — and she wanted to impress her somewhat. For some stupid reason or another, the blonde girl had given Bella a chance, and Bella Swan would take advantage of that. 

Well, she _would_ take advantage of it as soon as her heart stopped pounding so loudly and her hands stopped shaking every five seconds. 

Bella climbed to her feet and paced around the room, locating her pack of cigarettes. She then leaned next to the bedroom large window, peaking outside the cool night. The trees were almost invisible in the dark, looking particularly creepy with the wind blowing lightly. 

And was that a _shadow_ looming between the branches?

Bella put out her barely lit cigarette in her empty coffee mug and ran a nervous hand through her sweaty hair. She was getting crazy, her anxiety reaching new peaks. What the heck was that blondie doing to her?

It was just a _crush,_ an impossible one. It shouldn't feel like Bella’s world would crumble to the ground if Rosalie looked at her the wrong way or wasn’t impressed by her wardrobe.

While having a small breakdown, Bella saw on her table -- laying as innocently as a brownie can lay -- one of Ian’s baked goodies laced with high-quality hemp, that he had given to her after a particularly busy shift.

What harm could a small bite do, really?

(So much, so _much harm._ ) 

* * *

Bella refused to open her eyes even with her alarm blaring off, even with her mouth feeling as dry as the Sahara Desert, even with the sun shining way too bright for the time she was supposed to wake up. 

Oh no, Bella would _not_ open her eyes, she would lie in bed, _dead_ , and hope everything would just melt away — just like her brain probably melted yesterday after she ate the whole marihuana brownie Ian gave her.

The ring of a new message arriving on her cellphone made her change her mind quite quickly though. She reached blindingly over her nightstand, and when she successfully grabbed her phone, the girl proceeded to open her eyes slowly; dread climbing her spine.

Bella Swan took notice of these three things almost at the same time, not requiring a proper order to be listed :

Fact One: It was almost noon. She had miscalculated the time so poorly that it wasn’t even math anymore. 

Fact Two: Rosalie had texted a short phrase, nothing too big or ostentatious, simply ‘I’m coming over shortly, see you soon Bella.’. 

Fact Three: that message had been sent out almost 30 minutes ago. 

Bella was not a person well-equipped to do spontaneous acts of athleticism, so when she tried to climb off her bed in complete and utter _despair_ , yes, she _almost_ twisted her ankle and fell flat on her face. 

Dumb luck saved her though, and recovering quickly from this early humiliation, Bella got to her feet and ran around the room in a frenzy — colorful curse words flying from her mouth working as a fine soundtrack. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuckity- _fuck.”_ Bella made a mad dash through her bedroom, grabbing the disgusting mug filled with cigarettes-butts and whatever else was on sight that should be inside a trashcan. 

She burst downstairs, running straight to the kitchen and throwing whatever was on her arms down the trash — she would have to fish that mug out later. 

Suddenly things got stupidly worse, because Bella took two seconds to properly breath, look at her surroundings, and more importantly, listen to the washing machine running inside the laundry room…and the small puddle of water leaking under the door. 

“How bad can it be, how bad can it be…” Bella muttered, taking a deep breath, and opening the door to chaos.

Well, to a flood, really. 

Yes, she vaguely remembered deciding to wash her clothes yesterday while in marijuana influenced daze — she wanted to smell good for Rosalie — and _yes,_ she remembered throwing something close to a bucket of soap inside the machine while sipping on one of Charlie’s best beers. 

And she _clearly_ remembered turning it on. 

But she also turned it off, _goddammit._

She _did…or did_ she?

Well, the end result was a washing machine spitting water and soap like a waterfall.

Bella accepted her five seconds of mind-freezing panic and then sprang to action, first pulling the machine of its power plug — stopping the spitting water and soap combo, but not the dripping from the pipe behind it — then proceeding to grab all the rags and towels around the small room. 

She could _definitely_ dry it all out, Bella just needed to focus, be quick, be efficient, be like the _Flash…_

And then she heard a knock on the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non-required information: I always pictured Jessica Stanley being played by Sophia Bush, something like Brooke Davies in One Tree Hill, instead of Anna Kendrick (even though I adore Anna, lovely gal.)
> 
> I'll be back shortly, bye and thank you so much for reading and commenting <3


	6. A tale of how Bella ruins everything - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But not right now she won't.

Bella Swan was wet, wearing a terrible and threadbare shirt with a naked Iggy Pop on the front, hair so tousled that it somehow stuck to her forehead but still managed to be all spiked up on the back and, more importantly, she felt like death warmed over on the microwave. 

And this same Bella Swan opened the door — hands shaking, mouth dry— to the perfect angel that was Rosalie Hale standing on the porch. 

Rosalie Hale, who looked like a supermodel who left the runaway straight to Forks, Nowhere. Her hair was shiny and loose, falling behind her back like a halo —a soft-looking black leather jacket completed her white t-shirt and jeans wardrobe. And she rocked it. 

All in all, Bella was well aware of the fact that she could not fault the blonde girl for looking at her with golden eyes and a frown on her face, asking :

“ _What_ happened to you ?” 

Bella sighed loudly, looking down and looking as pathetic as she felt. She leaned across the threshold, leaving the door slightly closed, hoping against hope to hide whatever mess she left behind in her rush to get the door. 

“Morning. Morning happened to me.” Bella muttered between clenched teeth, risking a look at Rosalie, who looked back so intensely that Bella wandered for a second if she had X-Ray vision or something equally terrifying “ Look, everything is a mess right now, so maybe if you could come…”

“Why are you wet?” Rosalie inquired, arms crossed. 

“What now?”

“You. Wet.” The blonde girl nodded to Bella’s shirt, clearly sticking to her body. “What happened ?”

Bella sputtered and glanced down at herself. Why the _fuck_ it mattered how she got wet? Was Rosalie attracted to humiliation before lunch or something?

The blonde kept standing there, waiting expectantly, as if knowing why Bella was drenched before 1:00 PM would save the world. 

The brunette sighed once more, exhausted, so exhausted she couldn’t even remember to be nervous around Rosalie Hale — she just fully opened the door and jabbed a thumb behind her back. 

“My washing machine was possessed or something during the night and its spitting water everywhere…satisfied?” Bella said mockingly, waiting for a laugh or a reprimand. What she got was far weirder though. 

Rosalie just stood there, pink lips pursed in distaste, then she rolled her eyes, adjusted her shoulder-bag, and walked in inside — making Bella step back, startled. 

“Whatcha doing?” The Swan girl inquired, confused. 

“What do you think I am doing?” Rosalie answered as if it was obvious. She gave Bella a meaningful look, pointing at the sofa, and when the brunette just nodded back, Rosalie preceded to place her bag, her laptop folder, and her leather jacket on top of it. 

Suddenly, there was a Rosalie Hale, standing in jeans and a thin white t-shirt, on Bella Swan’s living room — and Bella Swan gulped loudly, feeling her cheeks burning up, as Bella Swans tend to do in such situations. 

“Are you planning to show me where’s your laundry room or we are going to stand here the whole weekend ?” Rosalie said, sarcasm dripping from her words. 

Bella shook her head awake, trying to get out of the stupor and the image of pale skin in front of her.

“What… what does it matter?” Bella asked back, tripping over words. Was Rosalie Hale possessed as well? Who in their sane mind would take a look at Bella's wet shirt and terrible bed-hair and decide to spend time with her?

“I’m already here. I want to finish our project.” Said Rosalie matter of factly, putting her hands in the pocket of her jeans — an action that prompted Bella to start a mental mantra of ‘don’t look there, don’t look there’ — and taking a look around “And your morning drama is getting in the way of it, so I need you to point me in the right direction so that I can fix it.”

“Fix what?”

“Your machine, Bella Swan” Rosalie was losing her already tried patience, Bella could just tell. 

“You gonna fix my washing machine…?” Bella wondered out loud, her mind trying to wrap itself around what was happening…and failing miserably. Was she _still_ high? That was it, she was still high on green brownies and this was a whole hallucination; she’s probably still sleeping back in the bedroom. 

“Somehow, I doubt your washing machine is upstairs.” 

Rosalie’s sarcasm snapped Bella out of it.

“Are you sure you wanna spend your Saturday fixing my washing machine?” Bella couldn’t help but ask once more, prompting the most adorable little snort from the blonde.

“No,” Rosalie said, arching her eyebrow “ I want to spend a _part_ of my Saturday working towards a good grade, as I programmed myself to…and as you should have.”

“Oh, like now, it’s _my fault…”_

“And if I want to accomplish _that_ , I’ll just have to help you out,” Rosalie stated, her tone challenging Bella to utter another word.

Bella took a big, deep, breath — inhaling Rosalie’s sweet smell along — and pinched her nose, for good measure. Ok, then. Rosalie wanted to play some weird fantasy of mechanic? Fine, that’s _fine_.

* * *

Apparently one cannot die of embarrassment, otherwise, Bella would have dropped dead the moment Rosalie got a peek at Charlie’s wet boxers. 

If that hadn't killed her, nothing else would. 

Bella observed from a safe distance while Rosalie went all McGiver on it — which was weirdly hot. Bella always figured she was the type to fix stuff up for pretty girls, but there’s something hot about having a pretty girl doing the heavy lifting… 

Distracted, it took her a while to notice Rosalie waving for her attention. 

“Do you have any tools I could use?” Rosalie asked, her voice strained. 

“Yeah…probably,” Bella answered, unsure. “I’m sorry you have to see…all that.”

“We are all adults here,” Rosalie says, surprisingly softly. “Could you grab your toolbox?”

Bella shrugged off, it wasn’t like she could be _more_ humiliated. She turned toward the kitchen, pretty sure she had seen a yellow toolbox somewhere in the depths of this — never cleaned before — cabinet. And there it was, behind a tin box and some paint. Bella lets a little ‘yes!’ out and gets back on her feet, proudly holding a toolbox. 

Just to see Rosalie Hale wearing a now wet white t-shirt. 

“I’m done.” Rosalie proclaims, unfazed by her now sticky shirt, showing off smooth skin and lace. Bella drags her eyes through Rosalie's, just a little, just for a second, but enough to choke on her own spit.“ Bella?”

Bella drops to her knees immediately, busying herself with shoving the too box to the back of the cabinet, refusing to look up. 

“How are you done already? Didn’t you need tools or something?” Bella stuttered, still looking down. 

“ The hose was just a little crooked, I just turned it back to the machine,” Rosalie explained patiently.

“ The metal hose? You turned it?” 

Bella is met with silence this time, she takes her time straightening up and taking a peek at Rosalie, who has her arms crossed over her chest and her jaw tense — was she…embarrassed? 

And Bella feels bad all of the sudden, for not thinking that maybe Rosalie doesn’t like all the looks she obviously gets…or that she’s just tired of it, so tired of everyone always looking first and getting to know her second. Bella can only wonder. 

The brunette makes a show of clearing her throat and gazing right into the golden pools of Rosalie’s eyes.

“Ok, why don’t we go upstairs and I can change…and you can change too. I swear I have dry clothes.” Bella says, voice weirdly raw. Rosalie only gives her an almost imperceptible nod. 

Bella sighs and leads the way. 

* * *

“Do you only own band T-shirts?” 

Now, there’s a scene Bella thought she would never get to see: Rosalie Hale standing in her bedroom wearing her Beastie Boys washed-out shirt, which is several numbers larger than she obviously wears — she makes it work, of course, somehow looking even more like a model, he shirt showing off a bit of a pale shoulder. Rosalie looks like an animal trapped in a cage, curious about her surroundings but keeping a fair distance off everything in case it’s dangerous.

Bella pretends like she didn't hear anything. Honestly? The idea of Rosalie hale standing in her bedroom wearing her clothes is too much to handle, at this point Bella is willing to take any jabs in her direction in stride. 

And it wasn’t like Bella would be winning any ‘Best Dressed’ award anytime soon.

“ I can see why Edward likes you,” Rosalie says softly, pulling at an invisible thread on the shirt. “ You have a lot in common.” 

Bella doesn’t know what to answer, she wants to say ‘You and I could have something in common too’ or ‘Talk to me’ or anything that isn’t swallowing and busying herself with the computer. 

Instead, she just says “Yeah, Eddy is great…”

Rosalie remains quiet, opting to search her bag for a notebook. Bella can see her moving by the corner of her eye, tense and careful — and Bella feels frustrated, she thought this would be her big opportunity to get closer to Rosalie, make some kind of connection to the blonde beyond what Edward brought to the table; but instead, they are circling each other with nervous stares. 

“ Let’s do this? The sooner we begin, the sooner we can end it…” Rosalie says, making herself comfortable on the messy bed.

Bella hyperventilates for a second — God, Rosalie Hale on her bed, perfectly posed, it’s too much— and chooses to grab the book by her side, flipping random pages. 

“Are you so eager to get rid of me?” Bella blurts out, then closes her mouth like a trap, not believing herself…

“ I get the feeling _you_ want me gone…” Rosalie says, sarcasm dripping from her lips, not even looking up. 

Bella is stunned for a moment, partly angry and partly sad that her complete lack of social grace resulted in that. She takes a deep breath and answers “Well, _you_ are entitled to feel that I guess…but hum, it’s not true.” 

She is met with silence, so she marches on.

“I’m grateful you picked me, for this, I mean…it’s cool. You’re cool.” Bella feels like shutting up right about now and she does just that. 

Behind her, Rosalie has a small smile on her face. And then they got to work. 

* * *

It’s not much of a group projects as it’s Rosalie telling her impressions and very pointed opinions on the flow of the story, and the language used by Shakespeare, and a bunch of big words that Bella surely can’t spell right but she types along anyway; when they finally arrive at the part where they need to do a contemporary parallel Bella’s head is already spinning with ‘whom’ and “thous”, but at least she finally has something to say.

“Romeo is a little bitch, ain’t he?” Bella says while she types whatever Rosalie's opinions on whatever it was happening on the balcony scene. “ Don’t you think? I mean, if this was happening today who would even care about teenagers and their drama.” 

Rosalie raises her eyebrow but makes no sound and Bella takes it as a cue to continue on.

“They are 14 or something gross like that, just move on already, eventually you’ll get over it.” 

“He did all that because he thought their love was worth it, don’t you think ?” Rosalie asks her chin resting on a manicured hand, a pen dangling from her fingers. She looks intensely at Bella as if her answer to the question was of extreme importance — Bella turns on her chair, straddling it backward and facing Rosalie with a smirk. 

“Oh, ‘their love was worth it’ you say? That’s very romantic of you.” Bella mocks.

“It is a very romantic book.” Rosalie answers in the same tone. “ Some would say it’s the greatest romance of all.”

“Bullshit,” Bella says with bite, she doesn’t even know where it came from but it’s there all the same. “Romeo and Juliet hurt way too many people just to be together, and then they selfishly kill themselves. He had friends! She had a family !” 

“I’m not saying I agree,” Rosalie says, very calm to balance Bella’s surprising outburst. “ I’m just saying they _thought_ it was worth it.”

Bella remains quiet. She thinks about her past relationship, how her decisions were taken from her, and how her now ex didn’t think whatever they had was worth it. The brunette rips a page in her notebook, one she didn’t even notice she was scribbling on.

“It’s still selfish…” Bella mumbles, unsure of the words to express herself. “Do you think something like this is worth it destroying everything?” 

“Like what?” Rosalie asks, her voice raspy — Bella doesn’t know what to make of it.

“Like love…or whatever they thought they felt.” 

“I think…” And Rosalie wets her lips, like tasting the words before saying it out loud. She hasn’t met Bella’s eyes once, the room filled with an electric tension that wasn’t there before. “ I think they met at the wrong time.” 

Silence is loud somehow, at least inside Bella Swan’s bedroom. 

“ And there’s nothing you can do when you meet someone at the wrong time.” Rosalie finishes her voice back to its assertive tone.

Bella swallows and goes back to her computer, her mouth tasting weirdly like defeat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I have no words besides 'I'm sorry' and 'I'll try to do better' - much like Bella, I get it wrong a lot of times.


	7. Progress is only an eight letters word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the worst hangout ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, hello, this didn't take too long did it? Thanks to everyone single one of you who commented or left out kudos, every one of them was like a kick in the butt to get back to work.
> 
> But really, thanks.

Bella Swan and Rosalie Hale were not talking. 

Well, they were  _talking_ per se, they said “Hello”, “Bye” and “I forgot my pen  _again_ , please lend me one?” and “Here are twelve pens, please stop asking for more” — which sounds pretty clear who is who in this dialogue — but that was it. 

They were back to politeness. And Bella hated it. 

Bella hated it so much she wished she never got the chance to hang out with Rosalie in the first place, because now she knew how good she smelled and how fucking good she looked wearing Bella’s shirt and standing in Bella’s room and…gosh, how come she missed someone she spent as much time as she spent with Nick from the grocery store. 

Bella was pathetic. No, Bella  _felt_ pathetic. 

And the worst part was she couldn’t talk to Eddy about it. 

Eddy, who was easily becoming her finest friend in Forks, who was so sweet and emotional, who would make playlist after playlist for Bella, and when she told him her truck’s radio was busted, he started to put it all on color-coded pen-drives. 

Eddy, who was so annoying with his properness and had an absurd amount of The Cure t-shirts, who listened to way too much Radiohead and not enough Strokes, who was shy but took a pic with Bella for her gram and just complained about a thousand times. 

Eddy boy, who now would follow Bella after school time to hang an hour or so at the dinner, making — sometimes gross and sometimes  _fucking_ delicious — coffee, with whipped cream pulled from gods know where or drawings of little kittens made of syrup. 

And Bella wished so hard she could just vent with him but she knows how boys are, deep down…even Eddy. He would freak, of course, and she couldn’t pull a “Kissing Booth” scheme on him; no matter how much having Rosalie Hale ignoring her hurt. 

She  _just_ couldn’t. 

She couldn’t, she couldn’t, she couldn’t, she…

“Hello, earth calling Bella Swan?” Leah was waving one hand in front of Bella’s face, while the other was holding a paper tissue to her nose. “ Where’s your mind at ?”

“Ugh…nothing, really.” Bella shrugged off “What’s up with your face? Allergies again? You look like fucking Rudolph.”

Leah snorted in response, which led to a series of short, cute, sneezes, which Bella could tell made her  _mortified._

_“_ It’s always fucking allergies!” Leah daps her nose with the tissue, then throws it in the trash under the table “Somehow, every time your stupid emo boyfriend comes along…maybe I’m allergic to white boys with poor taste in music.” 

Bella snickers in amusement, on the other side of the dinner, she could see her so-called ‘emo boyfriend’ sitting at the table, his cooper like hair obscuring his face —but Bella swears she can see his ears twitching, the boy had a hearing like a wolf. 

Edward had offered to help her out with her English homework if she would taste-test one of his new coffee creations — something with a lot of pumpkin spice and what resembled a pumpkin made of caramel syrup — which was surprisingly good if not too sweet. Bella would probably suggest it to Ian to put it on Halloween’s special menu. 

“Don’t be a prick, Leah.” Bella said, she always felt protective towards Eddy “ Everybody is allergic to white boys anyways.”

“Yeah, alrighty.” Leah snorted in response, leaning on the counter “ Are you coming to the clearing this Saturday, Jacob said he invited you already but I know it’s hard to say no to pretty me.”

Oh yes, the clearing hangout everybody was on and on about.

There was a very weird situation at lunch some 2 days ago, when Mike had tried to ask out Bella to the clearing — apparently she wasn’t sending enough gay vibes or Mike was just that oblivious — which prompted the following altercation :

“ So, you, me, the clearing, warm beer…what do you say?”

Extremely awkward silence from all parties and then Bella blurted out 

“I’m  _so_ gay, dude.”

Which made Eric snort his soda all over the table and send Angela into an uncountable fit of giggles that only ended in the second period. Kudos to Mike who just mumbled something and left running. 

Afterward, he came around with a pro LGBT button attached to the strap of his backpack and made Eric wear it too, and it was all good. 

But none of that made them give up on this stupid clearing party. 

“Everybody’s on and on about this crap, I don’t think I’ll ever have peace again if I don’t go.” Bella sighed, she was looking forward to just driving around in her truck, smoke a lot of cigs and feel bad about her life’s choices.

“Great, good to see you are very excited to spend time with your fucking friends.” Leah’s sarcasm could be seen from the moon but Bella just ignored it. “ It won’t be as cool as the summer’s ones, but it’s fun enough, trust me.” 

“Sure thing, Leah.” Bella just nodded along. Not long after, Leah excused herself to find some ‘fucking medicine or rip her nose off’, leaving Bella to close the shop by 5 pm or so; two minutes later Eddy was sitting on the stool in front of Bella, being very mindful of not placing anything on top of the sticky counter.

"I copied out my notes of the last Biology class, try not to destroy it this time." Eddy had a little smirk on his face, Bella had spilled a foul-smelling mixture on top of her notebook during the last class and Edward was still on her about it.

"Ha-ha, I'll try my best...but thanks, Eddy," Bella grumbled in response.

"Don't call me Eddy." 

"Sure thing Eddy-boy.”

Edward sighed in defeat and Bella let out a small laugh, it was  _so_ easy to mess with him, but she was truly grateful for all his help.

"But for real, thank you dude," Bella said, punching him lightly on the shoulder "You sure you don't want some free tacos as a reward? They are not so bad, cross my heart.”

"I'm definitely good, but thank you, Bella," Edward answered as politely as ever but Bella got a frown on her face anyway. She wasn't the most attentive person around, walking around clueless of direction or sense was actually her modus operandi, but even someone as unaware as herself could notice that Eddy rarely ate, even at school he was always pushing his fries or nuggets to her; she only ever sees he carefully sipping a coffee or another.

She cleared her throat and asked something that had been on her mind for a while now.

"Dude, are you...you know" She whispered the next part "  _Vegan_ ?”

"Why are you whispering?!" He asked, clearly amused, his smile causing cute little dimples -- this guy, really.

"I don't know." Bella truly didn't know " I just thought it was something you didn't go around talking about, like politics or dirty underwear," -- Edward boasted out in laughing -- "It's true! You never want to eat anything you prick, I'm just concerned.”

She was, truly. She had even voiced her concern to Angela one time but she just waved it off -- "I never noticed anything" she had said -- but nobody really spent as much time with Eddy besides Bella. 

Edward stopped laughing and took a deep breath like he was going to choose his next words carefully. He always did that, especially when things got personal: he would close his face, no expression whatsoever, and taste the words before saying it -- usually a monosyllabic answer or something so  _formal_ that made him sound like a robot speaking.

"I have a very restrictive diet, my siblings as well, we have lots of allergies." Edward talked like he was reading a memo or like Bella couldn't understand proper English " Our father thinks it's because of the poor diet of the orphanage.”

That shut Bella right up, what a way to put her foot inside her mouth.

"Dude, I'm  _so_ sorry, I'm a tool, really." Bella scratched the back of her head in complete awkwardness, which made Edward's expression soften somehow. " I can't cook for shit but if you ever want to tell me about your allergies and shit we can come up with something.”

"You would do that for me?" Eddy asked, amazement clear in his tone. 

"Of course, idiot, you're my friend!" 

"Thanks, Bella." He said shyly, head bowed down like he always did when Bella talked about their friendship "I really appreciate it.”

"Well, don't say that until you have tasted my food." Bella smiled sheepishly " It sucks."

Edward chuckled lightly and a soft silence fell upon them as Bella finished drying off the cups and mugs from lunchtime. The cooper haired boy was putting some of the chairs up even though Bella insisted it was fine; he was an annoying gentleman like that.

After, they found themselves sitting in the parking lot behind the diner. The concrete was cold and the day was cloudy and grey, propping Bella to pull her hoodie closer to her body; Eddy, as always, didn't see to feel the bite of the cold wind, his locks flowing freely, and his jacket resting on his lap.

They shared Edward’s earbuds, listening in companion silence to a German band Eddy had just discovered, but when Bella lighted up a cigarette, Edward frowned in disapproval,

"I really hate when you do this.” He mumbled, blowing air on Bella’s lighter.

“Well, I hate it when you comment on it.” She mumbled back, protecting her small flame with her hands. “You must be a riot at parties…”

“Oh, parties like the one you are planning on going to?” He joked lightly but Bella frowned back in confusion, how the fuck did he hear that? 

“How the fuck did you hear that?” 

“You don’t talk as low as you think” Edward answers avoiding Bella’s eyes and kicking a pebble on the ground. “ I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be listening to your conversations.”

Bella softened like she always did with Eddy. He was so awkward sometimes, regular teen stuff was always a mystery to him like he had spent all his life home-schooled and away from people his age. 

“It’s whatever, dude.” Bella shrugged “ Do you wanna come? I bet someone already invited your whole fam.”

It was true that the Cullens were an untouchable and unreachable crew but it didn’t mean people didn’t end up trying. There’s always a hopeful girl or boy talking put to Alice or Emmet, who were more approachable, and recently Edward as well, as he was always hanging out with Bella. 

“A girl did, actually, your friend Jessica.” He made a face “She talks a lot…but she was nice.”

“That’s Jess alright” Bella smiled, thinking about the constantly overexcited girl, she was nice. “So, you guys coming or what?”

“I’m not one to party very much…and I guess the others don’t feel like going either.” Edward kept playing with the little pebble, not looking at Bella “ Also, it’s on the reservation, and our families don’t mix very much.”

“How come? Did your families got into a fight or something?”

“It’s just…” He starts answering but then just sighs “ It’s a land thing, too complex to explain.”

Bella nods, but inside she’s burning with curiosity. What kind of weird family drama could happen in Forks? And as far as she knew, the Cullens weren’t even around that long…everything surrounding them was so weird anyway.

“You should invite Rosalie,” Edward said, changing the subject completely and making Bella choke on her own spit. “ You never told me how that project of you guys worked out.” 

It was Bella’s time to avoid Eddy’s gaze and mumble “It was stupid. She fixed my laundry machine and gave me an easy B+…and she also thinks I’m a complete idiot.” 

“I surely doubt that.” Edward says softly “ Did you guys fight ?”

“No…not really, ” Bella talked slowly, her voice rough “ I don’t think she likes me much, that’s just it. Sorry.” 

“I hardly believe that…” Edward looks off in the distance, choosing his next words carefully. “You know, Rosalie is very protective. Protective of her family, of her friends…of her feelings as well.” 

“Waiting for you to keep reaching out to her is just her way of protecting herself, you know?” Edwards continues on “ She’s worried you think she’s weird or suffocating.” 

Bella chews the inside of her mouth, confused with Edward’s insights. There’s absolutely no way perfect and poised Rosalie Hale was nervous to talk to Bella, it made no sense.

“Did she tell you that?” Bella asks in a small voice. 

“No, but she really doesn’t need to.”

* * *

Later, Bella is laid in her bed looking at her cracked cellphone screen, where a typed out message read ‘Hi Rosalie, do you want to hang out sometime?’. The words glowed menacingly in the dark, daring Bella to take action. 

But the brunette just deletes the whole thing, throwing the cellphone on the other side of the bed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnndd there it is...nothing, really. But the next chapter is a P A R T Y and anything could happen. 
> 
> Especially drunk texting to your crush, who knows.
> 
> Thanks for the patience and see ya soon.


	8. Take Care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a party at clearing and Bella's having a blast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come on, this was fast...I mean, kinda of.

It is common knowledge every city in this godforsaken world has a designated place for kids to get drunk. This place must have no further attractive than being secured from adults and most likely unsanitary. 

Back in Phoenix, every teen in a 10-mile ratio knew that almost every Thursday, there would be a party going on at the old shoe factory, a concrete building on the outskirts of town. It was close enough to a gas station that didn’t check your ID if you left some coins behind.

The police would go there two times out of four, kicking beer cans and pulling the stereo from the wall, taking the same ten kids in custody because they were carrying clear bags of weed. 

Forks spot for drunk shenanigans was better on the eyes, a clearing close enough to the beach, where you only needed to climb down a small hill to touch the salty water.

Bella couldn’t say she was missing Phoenix much, between half of her friends being online and the other half also being friends with her ex, she was pretty glad for the change of scenery; and now she could also add ' The Clearing' to Forks list of advantages. 

The bonfire was small, not quite reaching Bella's shoulder, but still warm, and it could easily illuminate the whole space when the sun went down. There was a keg propped beside one of the pickup trucks parked around; the boys in the basketball team cheered when it popped open while music played in the background. 

There was a mix of 30 or so kids between the Quileute crew and Forks High-school. Leah had already dragged over her lanky and broody boyfriend, Sam Uley, to say hi to Bella, poking fun at her for not bringing her ‘white emo boyfriend’.

“Are you friends with the Cullens?” Sam had asked in a weird voice, his handsome face turning dark and even more broody, to which Leah rolled her eyes, muttered ‘sorry’, and dragged him away once more.

Maybe Edward was on to something when he said the Reservation's boys weren’t too keen about the Cullens. 

“Fucking weird…” Bella muttered inside her red cup, sipping on her warm beer mechanically. 

She wasn’t in such a mood to party. Between her talk with Edward and the cold shoulder from Rosalie, Bella was in a sour mood. Kicking back on the couch with Charlie, watching Major League reruns, and wailing in self-pity had looked quite tempting.

Her iPhone weighted a ton inside her back pocket, so she took it out again, running her thumb over the cracked screen, Rosalie's name shining back at her. 

_She has a boyfriend_ , Bella thought, _she has a boyfriend_ , _and she is Edward's sis, and honestly, she only talked to me out of curiosity._

_Stop thinking you have a shot when you don't._

"Are you still on your first cup, Bells?" Jessica came out of nowhere, wrapping her arms around Bella's neck, the cup on her hand dangling dangerously " I thought city girls knew how to party!"

Behind came Angela and Eric. Both had been dragged by Jessica, against their will, to take 'artsy pics ' by the shore. Bella had untangled herself from the mess claiming she had to wait out for Leah. 

"I am some shots behind, ain't I?" Bella smiled amused, holding Jess's waist so that she didn't fall back, the girl had taken at least two vodka shots back in Eric's van. Angela snickered at the scene, grabbing Jessica's red cup from her hand despite her protest. 

"City girls know how to not burnout at the beginning of the party," Angela said, sarcastically, taking a sip from Jessica's drink and throwing the rest on the ground. " This is gross."

"You're gross." Jessica answered with a smirk on her face.

The girls had dressed up to the occasion, the last 'Clearing Party' before winter was a big deal in Forks. Even Eric and Mike had put on cool shirts and clean jeans with no holes in them.

Angela had put up makeup, something that even Angela herself referred to as a 'goddam miracle'. Her eyes were smoky and pretty, and her dark hair fell into waves. She was wearing a nice grey sweater, hugging her form.

In Bella's arms, Jessica also looked smoking. She went all the way out, dark eyeshadow and red lipstick that left smudges on Bella's cheek. Somehow, Jessica managed to wear a short skirt and a top even with the cold, she claimed it was her 'slutty powers'; whatever the hell it was, it looked _great._ She had come to the party with her own cheerleader's hoodie, but she had stolen Mike's leatherman jacket at some point, and although it was huge on her, she made it work. 

It all made Bella come to two distinct realizations :

1) She was one of the cool kids, how the fuck did that happen? She did not know. 

2) She should have put more effort into her looks. A black Nike hoodie and a beanie did not a great outfit made. 

"Tell me Bells, how's this compared to Phoenix ?" Jessica asked in a teasing tone, pulling Bella to sit down by her side on the sand, Angela sitting on the other side, with Eric excusing himself to grab some beer.

" Ugh...I mean, it is cool," Bella shrugged it off, not quite sure what to say "It's cleaner, I haven't seen a rat yet so cheers to that."

"That's so gross, city life is fucking weird." Angela made a disgusted face " We may only have one Starbucks, but it is very sanitary."

Jessica snorted and leaned back on Bella's side, the alcohol making her very cuddly. Bella put an arm around her shoulders, feeling weirdly protective. 

"Where's your boy Mike?" Bella asked, shaking Jessica a little, her answer being a little giggle. "You said you were going to treat yourself tonight, didn't you?"

"Yes, and I treated myself to this nice jacket, "Jessica said, wrapping the jacket tighter around her thin frame "And now I'm getting myself a warm hug by you." 

Bella laughed out loud, and Angela poked at Jessica's ribs, muttering about not being a 'fucking third wheel, you jerks', which just made Bella laugh louder. 

"But talking about Mike, I swear he's such a dumbass," Angela said, nudging Jessica to pay attention " Sorry if he made you uncomfortable, back at lunch." 

Bella smiled back at her to show everything was alright. It was all good with her, Mike wasn't the first boy to not have a clue and probably wouldn't be the last. It was what it was. 

"Well, if he asked me out the same way I would have said I was gay too." Jessica deadpanned, prompting another fit of laughter from the girls. "What? It was so stupid: 'you, me, warm beer'...what a prick."

Bella hugged Jessica closer, feeling lighter inside. She had cool, funny friends...who fucking cares if Rosalie Hale is unreachable? Not her. 

"It sucked..." Bella said, finishing up her beer " Probably the worst I have ever heard."

"Have you been asked out a lot? " Jessica asked, teasing again, but still looking intensely at Bella. 

"No, not really," Bella muttered, getting pink on the cheeks for no reason. "But I had a girlfriend once..."

Bella had no idea why she mentioned that, if there was one thing she avoided thinking about it was her ex. Pink streaks of hair came to mind, and kisses that tasted too bitter. 

Bella felt her hands twitching and she wished for a smoke. 

"Oh, mysterious ex-girlfriend." Angela provoked, but one look at Bella's face made her stop. " You know, everyone has shit exes, we don't have to talk about it."

"We sure don't !" Jessica exclaimed, suddenly filled with energy, pulling Bella up once more. " Let's get wasted for fuck's sake."

And Bella, for once, was glad for that. 

* * *

She drank too much, the shot of whipped cream flavored vodka being a mistake. The edge of her vision was blurry, and her movements felt sluggish like she was moving underwater. 

Bella had won the last round of Flip Cup, with everyone cheering around her and a kiss from Jessica; no tongue, just a loud smack. It tasted sweet all the same. 

Now, she had climbed down the small slope to look at the saltwater waving back and forth, the moon already high on the starless sky, an unlit cigarette dangling from her hand. _Why the fuck did she took it out again?_

" Whatcha doing here, Bells?" Jacob exclaimed behind her, sliding the last bit of the slope and stepping into the water "Oh, it's freezing! " 

Bella laughed at him, the dork. He had arrived later, claiming he had gotten stuck at work. Leah had teased him endlessly, saying he got late because he was brushing his long hair. 

"I'm just chilling...," Bella said, voice wavering. She felt her phone in her back pocket, quite tempting, whispering to her to do something stupid." I think I'm drunk."

Jacob laughed at her, standing by her side, now being mindful of the cold water. 

''It's alright, everyone is drunk.''

"I think I texted Eddy." Bella mumbled, "Oh, he's going to be so worried." 

"Eddy...?" Jacob wondered out loud " Edward Cullen? The Cullen boy?"

"Yup."

"You know, Leah says you have been hanging around him a lot." Jacob started, his voice in a weird tone Bella couldn't quite decypher in her current state. " Just be careful with them..."

" With whom? " Bella was confused and not in the mood for whatever shit Jake was on about.

" The Cullens, Bella! " Jacob said, waving his arms around " There are some stories, weird shit..."

"Not you too, Jake..." Bella moaned in annoyance, putting her cig back in her pocket. " Eddy is fine, Rosalie is fine, they are all fucking _fine..."_

"I fucking swear, Bella!" Jake shoved his hands back into his pockets, trying to contain himself. " They are dangerous folk, at least that's the word around the Res... I'm just saying, be careful."

" What, they are with the mob or something?" Bella almost yelled but not quite. Jake was being a dick, it wasn't like she asked for his opinion.

"No, nothing like this...they have just been around for a while, but at the same time _no one_ knows where they come from, there are legends..."

"Legends...what the fuck are you on about?" 

"It's just Reservation's legends." Jake sighed in defeat "They say the Cullen's have been around far longer than anyone, that their family is old and cold...and very very dangerous."

Bella's face must have said it all because Jacob rushed out to explain :

"Maybe _it is_ something with the mob, who knows! Just be aware of them, alright?" 

Bella kept quiet for long seconds, trying to digest all the mumble-jumbo coming out of Jake's mouth. Maybe they weren't your regular small city habitant, but the Cullens were _nice_.

Edward was _sweet._

And Rosalie was...things that Bella had no word for.

"Dude, you know what?" Bella exclaimed, finally lighting up her cig, suddenly feeling tiredness inside her bones "Let's just fuck off, I am kind of done..."

And then she turned to climb back the slope ignoring Jacob's pleas behind her. 

* * *

Bella was shaking inside Jacob's shitty truck, the heat being fucked up for whatever reason. She had ignored any attempt of conversation made by the tall boy, turning up the radio louder. The pen-drive she had given to Jake was plugged in and _The Less I Know The Better_ was playing stupidly loudly.

The lyrics wrapped up like vines inside her brain, _I said better late than never, just don't make me wait forever._

_Forever is a fucking long time,_ she thought.

Feeling a burst of courage, most likely fulled by too much cheap beer, Bella grabbed her cracked phone and ran the contacts list until she stopped on 'R'.

Then she typed out.

**Rosalie Hale - chat :**

**"I dont like that we are not talking"**

**"i think we should talk likke all the time"**

**"your not weird"**

**"you are great"**

**"shit"**

Bella hit sent before she could think too much about it, resting her head back on the cold window. Feeling lighter than ever.

* * *

"Who's that ?" 

Bella woke in surprise, already feeling a kink on her neck from slouching all over the front seat. Scrubbing her eyes, she looked out the window and lo and behold: Rosalie Hale, standing on her porch step. 

"Bella? Are you alright? You're not going to throw up, are you?" Jacob shook her a little, Bella had gulped so hard that he was frowning in concern. 

"It's cool, it's chill..." Bella cleared her throat " It's just Rosalie." 

"Rosalie Cullen?" Jake exclaimed loudly but leaned back when Bella threw the stink eye at him "Ok, sorry. I'll just go...se ya around?"

Bella just waved over her shoulder, nodding to whatever Jake was saying. She had the presence of mind of feeling her pockets for her cellphone and cigarettes. She stumbled out of the truck, almost face-planting on the floor; Rosalie was suddenly by her side in a second.

Rose's hair was down, waving at her back like gold, a small crinkle of worry on her face, something Bella wouldn't normally notice if she was sober, but drunk Bella wasn't afraid to stare at Rosalie Hale intensely.

"Why are you wearing my shirt?" Bella blurted out the first thing that came to mind "Aren't you cold?"

Rosalie was, indeed, wearing the shirt Bella had lent to her - the Beastie Boys one - hanging loosely on her shoulders. It looked so nice on her, but to be fair, _everything_ looked...

"I think we should get you inside," Rosalie whispered like she was talking to a scared animal. She held Bella delicately by the shoulders, directing her towards the house. Bella still looked over her shoulder to see Jacob waving wildly back at her and mouthing 'banana' or 'careful'...probably the latter. 

Rosalie guided Bella up the porch and then patiently watched as she fumbled with the keys under the mat. Bella could hear the TV playing softly inside, Charlie had forgotten to turn it off; as he often did. 

"I should ask at some point what you are doing here, shouldn't I?" Bella tried to whisper, but her voice came out loud. They entered carefully inside, the living room empty and illuminated only by the white light of the TV, a basketball game playing on the screen. 

"Let me take you to your room..." Rosalie said in the softest voice Bella had ever heard. She took Bella's wrist delicately in her hands and guided her upstairs; Bella was not sure of much, but she could swear she felt Rose's cold hands shaking. 

It was like stepping inside a time-machine, once more Rosalie was standing still in the middle of Bella's bedroom, while the latter flopped down on the bed. It felt a lot like an out-of-body experience and Bella didn't know if her mind was spinning from the drinks or Rosalie's perfume; something sweet and spicy. 

"Did I text you...?" Bella started, confused. She did text Rose, didn't she? Oh my god, she was such a fucking idiot, what the fuck...

"You did," Rosalie said, sitting on the chair behind her, looking down at the floor. " You texted Edward as well, but when he texted back you didn't respond, and then when Alice didn't see you..."

"Alice? Saw me? Where?"

Rosalie shook her head, ignoring Bella. She was focused on her hands, twisting them in the first show of nervousness Bella had seen her display.

"You have to know, Bella Swan, that I wasn't expecting _you_ ," Rosalie whispered, or Bella thought she did, so low was her voice. "I just wasn't."

And Bella could answer that with a joke but it didn't feel like Rosalie was talking to _her_ , it was more like she was reassuring herself....of what? Bella didn't know. It could be, that maybe...she was just as confused as her?

"Rose...it's fine," Bella said, tentatively, getting up slowly, trying to approach Rosalie as she would a cornered animal. "I mean, whatever it is, it's _fine._ "

But Rosalie was having none of that. She stood quickly, prompting Bella to take a step back; her hands weren't shaking anymore.

"I believe I should go. Sorry for coming here unannounced." Rosalie's voice was devoid of any feeling now, almost robotic. She pushed Bella's chest lightly, making the brunette blush. "Bella...rest, I'll leave your keys under the mat."

And Bella fell back because it was the only thing she could do. By the time her mind caught up with it all, she made an effort to look out of the window but Rosalie's car was not in sight.

_And it isn't like texting brought any great results tonight_ , she thought.

She dropped on the bed, feet dangling off the edge, feeling like she had fucked up by simply coming to Forks. 


	9. hangover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath is surprisingly sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, it is me. Enjoy this transitional chapter to a new era

The first thing Bella noticed on Monday morning was a notification on her phone.

'Rosalie Hale has followed you back.'

_Well, ok is perfectly possible I woke up in another dimension_ , Bella thought.

She had no idea how to react. Bella had reached out to Rosalie on Sunday when the fog of alcohol had left her brain and Charlie finished giving his sermon about 'responsibilities'.

But her texts were left on 'unread' and her calls were unanswered. She considered calling up Eddy, but she had no idea if Rosalie had told him about her 'night visit' and she wasn't in the mood to deal with whatever drama would come along with it. 

She spent Sunday cleaning her room, sneaking cigarettes when Charlie wasn't looking, and exchanging embarrassing photos from the night before. It was good and Bella  _almost_ forgot about Rosalie. 

Almost.

But now was Monday, and Rosalie had followed her back, and her messages had been read. Something was going on. 

Bella was so anxious she smoked a cig on the way to school, dropping ashes on her already dirty jeans; by the time she parked her truck, her hands weren't shaking so badly and her heart was back to a normal pace. 

The weather was crap, as always, so she shoved her hands inside her hoodie and made a mad dash towards the entry. 

* * *

Rosalie Hale was standing in front of Bella's locker. Leaning onto it, to be more specific. 

It's important to notice that Rosalie Hale, more often than not, was very much like a car crash. Everyone in the vicinity would stop to look or slow their step to take a peak; it was human nature, to be attracted to her.

She had dark boots and skinny jeans on, and a leather jacket that probably cost more than Bella's truck; her golden hair was tamed in a loose braid. She was unapologetic stylish and _hot_ .

Rosalie's eyes were focused on her cellphone, but before Bella could even  _think_ of turning around and run back to the safety of her car, she turned her honey eyes towards Bella. They locked eyes for tense seconds before Rosalie straightened her back and took a step to the side.

She was...waiting for Bella? 

"I didn't think you would make it to First Period," Rosalie said like this was a common occurrence. Like she was always waiting for Bella Swan, in front of her locker, like her fucking  _girlfriend_ or something.

"I...hm.Yeah." Bella's mouth felt dry, as it often did around Rosalie. She fumbled with her backpack and opened up her locker, grabbing probably the wrong textbook in the process, but successfully avoiding Rosalie's eyes. 

"Bella, about Saturday night..."

"Look, we don't have to talk about it." Bella closed the locker door with more force than she intended. "I'm sorry I'm bothering you, alright? I'll keep away. I won't text you anymore...and you definitely do not need to 'pity-follow' me or whatever it is."

Bella said it all in one breath, feeling dizzy on the comedown. She hoped she didn't yell all that, but she could feel the stares from a nice chunk of the student body. The hardest stare was from Rosalie.

"Rosalie..." Bella started, running a nervous hand through her messy hair, trying to pat down the locks, feeling incredibly silly. "It's  _really_ messed up that I texted your Saturday night. The fact we did  _one_ project together and you sit next to me in some classes does not mean I can invade your privacy like that.  _I'm sorry._ "

Bella felt like shoving her head inside the locker and closing the door. She shouldn't be considered an English speaker, she should take it out from her resumé, it should read 'Pre-school English', it was pure shi...

Rosalie looked taken back for a minute, but then she smiles the best smile Bella had ever seen. 

"You know, Bella Swan, that's exactly  _why_ I'm not mad about Saturday night...you're sweet." 

Bella remains silent and Rosalie takes it as a cue to continue on.

"I think we should have lunch together. " Rosalie said, almost shy-like "With my siblings as well. They really want to officially meet the girl that made me run out in the middle of the night."

Bella only nodded in return, not sure what to say back. Rosalie adjusted the strap of her purse to her shoulder and turned to leave, throwing Bella a little wave.

Bella waved back, static in place. In her hoodie's pocket, her phone vibrated. 

**The forks gang - group chat :**

**mike dumbass: FYI bells, rosalie hale is waiting for you in front of your locker**

**Nerd Eric: lol you are so fucking lucky Bells**

__________________

Bella felt relieved that none of her friends gave her shit for ditching them to hang with the Cullen's during lunch. 

Well, Mike whistled loudly and Jess made a weird face, but aside from that, it was cool.

It was cool, Bella wasn't nervous at all, she wasn't shaking, wasn't thinking about escaping into the courtyard, wasn't thinking about calling Leah for rescue...

Eddy shook her out of her meltdown, taking her tray from her shaking hands and pulling her down in the process. 

"Are you ok, Bella?" Edward asked in a low voice.

"I...hm, yeah, I was just out of it...." Bella mumbled more to herself than anything, then she found the courage to look up "Hm, hi guys, it's cool if I eat here, yeah?"

Sitting around the table was the most beautiful assortment of teenagers in the world, probably. The tiny, pixie-like girl -- Alice, wasn't it? -- grinned wildly, as she could barely contain her excitement. She was impeccable with a colorful sweater and hair elegantly mussed up.

"It's so cool, Bella!" Alice squealed, she was followed by collective nods from her other siblings, aside from Rosalie, who looked like she wished to melt under the table, and Edward, who made his regular 'constipated' face.

"Chill out, Alice," Eddy said, his usual protective tone coming through. Bella rolled her eyes. 

"Your brother is such a prick sometimes, did you know?" Bella bent over the table, pretending to whisper over to Alice. She laughs out loud, and it was like bells ringing; her laugh was followed by a boisterous one. 

Oh, that's Rosalie's boyfriend, Emmet. 

Up close, he was ever more handsome, taller, and more built than his adoptive brothers. Dark hair with short, perfect curls, framed his face, and he was slightly tanner than the others; the honey eyes were the though, as with all the Cullen's.

"I like you already," Emmet said, his deep voice booming. He reached out to a fist-bump to which Bella returned, grinning back at him.

That more or less broke the ice between everyone.

Bella soon figured it out that although the Cullen's were beautiful and elegant, they would bicker and provoke each other like every set of siblings around. Jasper, the tall blonde who was Alice's boyfriend was quieter, much like his -- twin, they were twins right? -- Rosalie. 

Alice and Emmet compensated the quietness of them both thought, with every conversation subject under the sun: Did Bella liked Forks? And how was life in Phoenix? Did she like the climate? Has she been to Port Angeles yet? Does she prefer rock or soft pop? Did she hear the new Taylor Swift album?

It was like they never got to talk to anyone before so they were trying to cram everything in lunch period. Although exhausted, Bella thought it was sweet. Even Emmet, who she thought she was supposed to be jealous of, was so much like a big Golden Retriever that she couldn't help but like him.

Did she feel a pang of jealous ache when he joked around with Rosalie with no fear or shyness? Yes, she did. But it was  _fine._

Bella tried to sneak glances at Rosalie, who would always be looking back, a small smirk on her lips. The first time Bella blushed endlessly, but then it was less and less so. She was very disappointed when the bell rang. 

Usually, that meant she would sneak with Edward towards the bleachers to smoke a quick cig before the last period, but Rosalie beat Edward to that, standing up and waving bye to her brothers and sister. 

"I'll take Bella to her class now, you hooligans," Rosalie stated, motioning to Bella to do the same. At the table, Alice and Emmet groaned.

"Come on, Rose, you can share Bella a bit more," Emmet complained, crossing his strong arms. " They like to keep you to themselves, Bells, but don't worry, I shall rescue you."

"Shut up, Em." Edward said between teeth, which made Alice giggle " You too, Alice."

"I mean..." Bella started, standing up a bit unsure of what to say " It's cool, we can do this again wherever. Pinky promise."

"What's that?" Jasper blurted out, a confused expression on his handsome face. Bella frowned back, dude was from the countryside by the gossip around town, but even then...

"What? Pinky promise?" Bella asked, " It's an unbreakable vow made with your pinky -- she showed her pinky finger for good measure - Here."

Bella extended her pinky to Jasper, who was at first confused, then extended his pinky like one would approach a crocodile. Bella rolled her eyes and crossed their pinky, tugging at it once.

"There you go, now we have to have lunch together forever." Bella said mockingly, while Alice cooed and 'awwnnned'. Jasper looked extremely confused but somehow satisfied, he nodded in understanding. 

"Ok, let's ditch these weirdos." Rosalie pulled Bella along, while her siblings waved very enthusiastically behind them. 

"Don't you want to bring your boyfriend as well?" Bella had the nerve to ask, confused as to  _why_ Rosalie was so adamant in leaving them.

"Oh, it's fine." Rosalie answered, shrugging it off "It's no big deal."

Bella would later think to herself that she didn't see any of the Cullens eat yet again. 

* * *

They were soon in a mostly empty hallway, Bella for once arriving early to Lit. Class.

"So..." Bella ran her hand through her hair, apparently, this was her new nervous tick around Rosalie. "Was I approved by the fam or what?"

"I mean, Edward already worships you, and Emmet and Alice would approve of anything with half a brain..." Rosalie joked, nodding Bella lightly with her shoulder.  _Oh gosh, she's so cute._ " So, it was only Jasper and I can tell he likes you."

"Oh, can you? It's a twin thing?" Bella nudged back, feeling light for the first time since Rosalie showed up at her house. Lunch had been fun but there was tension lingering in the air like she and Rosalie were in a conversation of their own. 

Now, they were mostly alone, aside from the janitor sweeping at the corner. And Bella could tell Rosalie relaxed more. Joked more. Acted less. 

"Yes, it is a twin thing." Rosalie continued on " Now, you just have to meet the parents and that's it."

"Ha, and then I can safely propose ?" 

" You wish, Bella Swan" Rosalie winked, entering the classroom just as the second bell rang. 

I _s she flirting? Is Rosalie Hale flirting with me? Is this real life?_ Bella's brain was about to explode any second now.

She sat down beside her blond companion, enjoying the quiet before the class filled out with raging teens.

"Rosalie Hale...thanks for reaching out. I really thought you wouldn't want to talk to me ever again." Bella said, trying to keep it sweet. She just wanted to show Rose she truly appreciated her, that it was genuine. 

"Bella Swan, I think I owe you an apology. When Edward started talking to you I was...hesitant. People usually just talk to us with other things in mind, so maybe I was too protective at first. Of Edward, of myself..."

"But you kept hanging with him, and he kept speaking so highly of you. So, maybe that project was my curiosity getting the best of me, either way, I was surprised...but also unsure. How could I know what was on your mind?"

"Nobody knows what's on anyone's mind, Rosalie." Bella said softly "We just kinda hope we do."

"Yes...but I'm sorry that I was rude afterward, I just needed time to think." Rosalie was looking directly at Bella, sounding more confident of her words "To organize some things."

" It is fine. I mean, I get that it takes some time to trust people..." Bella tried to sound more confident than she felt "I get it, I truly do." 

"We are cool, right?" Bella extended her pinky again, hand not shaking at all.

Rosalie smiled softly at her and extended her pinky too. Her hands were always cold but Bella felt warm inside. 

How could anything go wrong from there?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh, they are so cute. from now on things will pick up the pace, with Bell and Rose hanging out more and more. Cheers.


	10. The games we play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bella will loose her cool, but not today.

Bella was quickly understanding that being friends with the Cullens was an intense and busy trial. They, most often than not, behaved like needy children, constantly pulling at her to do something or another.

Be it Emmet texting her memes from 2009 nonstop or sending pics of his sneakers collection - he was such a sneakerhead it wasn't even funny - or even Jasper, who even in his shyness and careful approach, made Bella download an online chess game app to play against him in the wee hours of the night.

Or Alice, who was somehow addicted to drawing games, fashion shows, and baseball; and was constantly bothering Bella about her opinion on these subjects. 

It was clear that Eddy was having some trouble with sharing Bella's time, the diner where she worked still being their 'sacred place'; the school grounds were FairPlay though, and the other Cullens took full advantage of that.

In the middle of this maelstrom called 'The Cullen Family' was Rosalie Hale, the one Bella was currently texting with. The blonde had just sent a pic of her car project of the week, and an off-road Jeep that looked like a war-machine; Bella was just asking a bunch of random questions, eager to keep the conversation flowing. 

"Who the fuck are you texting ?" Leah plumped next to Bella, who was sitting on a booth in the far corner of the diner. She had just finished serving tacos to this elderly couple. "You're making a gross face."

"Hi, Leah. Fuck off, now."

"Oh, are you texting your blonde  _girlfriend_ ?" Leah batted her long lashes, trying to peak at Bella's phone. " Your phone is crap, you know? I can't see shit."

"You're  _not_ supposed to see shit," Bella said between clenched teeth, shoving her phone in her back pocket. "And it is not Eddy."

"I said  _blonde girlfriend,_ not an emo boyfriend. Get on the agenda, Bells." Leah said matter of factly. She had this annoying habit to nickname everything, even the old and sad coffee machine had one - "Be delicate with Rusty, Bella, she's fragile" Leah would say - and refused to refer to it as anything else. "Come on, share it with me, your love life is better than Netflix."

Bella just sighed. The truth was, not even Bella herself knew what the fuck was going on. 

She was enjoying getting closer to the Cullens, but with Rosalie it was different. It was delicate, more important somehow. Bella would be the first to admit that what used to fuel her crush on Rosalie Hale was the fact that the blonde was incredibly hot and mysterious; Bella was a mix of curious and horny. It wasn't like she knew anything about her besides what she saw in brief encounters. 

But now they were  _talking, sharing, joking._ Rosalie had a snarky sense of humor that kept Bella on her toes at all times, she was stupidly smart and engaged in social causes, a raging and proud feminist; Rosalie made even  _cars - fucking cars -_ seem interesting.

Bella was starting to catch feelings for Rosalie Hale and feelings were a big no-no. Her palms would sweat and shake from even thinking about it...she couldn't  _like_ Rosalie, she just couldn't. It took so long for Bella to get over all the trauma from her ex, and even then, it felt entirely unfair to Rosalie to just have to deal with Bella's feelings; it took a lot of trusts for them to even become _friends_ .

Having a crush is one thing but feelings were a three-headed-beast who would bite your ass off if you aren't careful enough.

And there was also the matter that the Cullens were  _fucking_ weird sometimes. Maybe nobody had spent enough time with them to notice, but Bella was quickly putting two plus two together and finding out it doesn't add up.

The 'not eating' thing, the total lack of social graces, how Emmet looked like a quarterback but didn't practice anything, or how they would all disappear when it was sunny out. Weird fucking shit was going on, and Bella was itching with curiosity and the distinct feeling she was being lied to.

Also, there was the cherry on the top of this cake of bullshit excuses: Last week, Bella was late to school as usual and Eddy was waiting by her parking spot at school,  _as usual_ . Then, Tyler Crowley came skidding on the iced snow on the parking lot and  _supposedly_ didn't crush Edward like a fucking pancake; nobody could quite explain the weird dent on the side of Tyler's van or how come it didn't topple over the sidewalk. 

Eddy refused to say jack-shit about it, to Bella's complete exasperation. He claimed Tyler had hit his head too hard anyway and couldn't know what truly happened; nobody got hurt, so it wasn't like the police would look too much into it. 

Bella's head hurt just from thinking about it. She was an idiot, alright, but not a moron. Something was going on. 

She just didn't know if Leah was the right person to share it with. 

"It is what it is. She's Eddy's sister and she has a boyfriend." Bella decides to say, more to herself than to Leah, who just rolls her eyes, probably exhausted from having to hear the same argument over and over. " Don't be like that, I'm just stating the facts. And isn't your crew kinda against the Cullens? What's up with that?"

Leah scoffed loudly, rolling her eyes one more time, Bella sometimes worried she would get her eyes stuck like that. They remained in silence for a moment, listening to some 80s tune playing in the background, which was Eddy's fault, most likely; he would sometimes climb over the counter and plug one of his playlists.

"You know, when my father got sick, he did his whole cancer treatment at Forks Hospital..." Leah started hesitantly and Bella had the common sense to keep quiet. " And Mr. Cullen, the father, was assigned as his doctor...my dad was resistant at first, not gonna lie, be with time he got so weak he couldn't even be a pain in the ass." 

Bella laughed weakly and Leah smiled softly back at her; her hazel eyes were glistering and Bella was sensible enough to not comment on it, she just got closer. 

"Anyways," she continued "Doctor Culler persisted, he would answer all my mother's questions a thousand times, would be inside that hospital night and day. There was no time too late or too early. He took good care of him, and when my dad died, Doctor Cullen made sure we're ok, even months after it."

"Esme, his wife, baked so many cookies for my little brother, Seth, he must have put a thousand pounds in...that's just to say, Dr. Cullen is a good man and his kids can't be much different, he raised them after all. It doesn't really matter what the tribe says."

Bella nodded, feeling a lump in her throat with this story. She vaguely remembered Charlie saying something about Sue Clearwater's husband, but she had never connected the dots. She made a gesture to pull Leah closer, in a hug, but the wild girl just punched her on the ribs. 

"Don't be gross, Bella." 

"Ugh, fucking hell, why are you like this? " Bella massaged her side, "I thought we were having a moment here!"

"Doesn't mean we have to cry our hearts out..." Leah grumbled, drying her eyes with the back of her hand "What I was trying to say is: Fuck the tribe, you do you."

"Well,  _thanks_ for sharing." Bella answered bitterly "Your legends are fucking hard to come by, either way." 

"That's because most of it is an oral tradition, dumbass." Leah poked at Bella's tender side but the other girl pushed her back "If you want true information, you have to hit a library as our ancestors did back in the Stone Age. I think Port Angeles has a bunch of them." 

"You just said it was oral tradition !"

"Yeah, but some folks have written it all down, it's just not digital. We are a small community after all, and the internet at the Res. is crap."

"Well, thanks, Leah," Bella answered.

Inside, Bella was close to bursting. Dangling a secret in front of Bella was not unlike dangling a zebra in front of a pride of lions or flashing tickets to Hamilton to a Broadway fan. Eventually, both would rip your arm off just to get it. 

Bella felt like she was doing pretty good at containing her urge to Google the fuck out of the Cullens, but there shouldn't be a problem with peaking at the Quileute tribe right? 

* * *

Bella cursed the cold one more time and hugged her jacket closer to her body. It was late October and the weather had become increasingly shitty since the bonfire party, so Bella had to resort to climbing under the bleachers to sneak a cigarette during lunch-break.

She had chosen to ditch Eddy, being somewhat mad at him still. The closer she got to the Cullens, the more she felt like she was being the butt to an inside joke; and fucking hell, she hated the feeling.

Bella was close to throwing her lighter away, her shaky hand putting out the flame when a cold but steady hand came out behind her and held it.

"You know, closing your jacket might help with the cold," Rosalie said with a smirk, stepping out from behind Bella. The blonde seems unaffected by the cold, as the Cullens usually were, but she still had a beanie on and a puffy jacket with the NorthFace logo on it. 

"Well, if I close my jacket nobody will be able to see my nice T-shirt, right?" Bella said sarcastically. The zip from her old Levi's had been broken for years now, and Bella never bothered to fix it up because she didn't use it very much back in Phoenix.

Now, her laziness was biting her own ass as it normally did.

"You and Eddy with these band shirts..." Rosalie shook her head exasperated, but took her beanie from her head and put it delicately on Bella's, tucking her now very pink ears inside it. "Well, now your ears won't fall off at least."

"Dude, there's no need for it..." Bella made a move to take it off but Rosalie held her hands, tugging them firmly to her sides. " Come on, Rosalie, won't  _you_ be cold without it?"

"I don't get cold that easily." Rosalie said matter of factly, to which Bella scoffed."What?"

"None of you Cullens get cold  _easily_ . Is that some family trait ?"

Rosalie remained silent for a minute, studying Bella's mocking face, to which Bella averted her eyes; her cheeks probably getting pink again. Rosalie let go of her hand and took a step back. 

"Well, we lived in Alaska for a while, so I guess we are very resistant to the cold." Rosalie shrugged it off, putting her hands inside her jacket pocket. Bella couldn't help but think that she was pretending to be cold. 

It was exhausting to doubt her friends.

"Edward says you are giving him the cold shoulder." Rosalie tried to change the subject " Did you guys get in a fight?"

Bella kicked at some dirt on the ground, her cigarette now useless lit. 

"You don't have to tell me..."

"We are not  _fighting_ ...it's stupid." Bella mumbles. She wants to ask 'Do you guys do not trust me?' but she keeps quiet. " He claims we are  _best friends_ but I don't think he tells me everything."

"Even best friends have secrets sometimes."

"It's cool to have secrets, everyone has shit to deal with. I just don't like being made a fool of." Bella said with more snark than she intended, but Rosalie doesn't seem affected, she just gets this gentle smile on her face; the one that makes Bella's insides melt.

"Sometimes secrets are here to keep us safe," Rosalie says, gentle but firm.

"I claim bullshit." Bella was angry now, hurt even " You know when my mom decided to leave my dad, I was four and had no say on it. And then, when she decided to follow her boyfriend around the country, she said I could come along or come here, but let's face it, that wasn't much of a choice was it?"

"And when my ex-girlfriend decide she was done for, she just skipped town on me. So, I'm sorry if having my choices taken from me makes me  _fucking_ angry."

There's the silence after Bella's rant, as oppressive as the cold air. Rosalie is not looking at her eyes anymore and Bella is debating just running off for good.

Rosalie takes a big breath, though, and speaks.

"Look, I  _get_ you. If there's something I hate more than anything is having my choices taken from me." Rosalie looks Bella in the eye, her iris flashing weirdly black for a moment " I swear, Bella,  _I get it_ ."

"And if you want to know, I was very much against this whole thing" -- she gestures widely -- " Because I know there are some things my family  _can't_ talk about, that  _I_ can't talk about, and that it could possibly hurt you."

"So,  _I'm sorry_ . But if you want our friendship, that's just how it is." Rosalie says with finality and a wave of anger in her eyes that Bella hasn't seen since the first day they met at parking lot.

"But if I found out..." Bella starts but Rosalie steps closer to her, her breaths almost mixing.

"Don't try to find out, Bella, just  _don't_ ."

They lock eyes, brown on black, and Bella has never felt so afraid or horny at this moment. She could slap Rosalie or kiss her. 

But the blonde turns and walks away, leaving Bella high and dry.

_And very fucking curious._

_Game on, Rosalie Hale,_ she clutches her lighter tightly in hand _, game fucking on._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And look who's backkkkk ! Come on, I'm making an alright schedule now.
> 
> Sorry if anyone wanted the whole 'pickup scene', I just thought if my Bella got to be part of it, the cat would already be out of the bag.
> 
> Also, someone commented that they pictured Hunter Schaffe as Rosalie Hale which I think is really fucking cool, feel free to share who you picture each character as. 
> 
> I think the only two I have a FC for are Bella, who's still Kristen, and Jessica, who I immediately associated with Sophia Bush. The rest I just change according to my mood.
> 
> Next stop, the Port Angeles scene.


	11. Port Angeles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bella is searching for answers but gets a little more than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, this was very hard. I really wanna get to the good part already.

* * *

There was no such thing as too many pop songs in the backseat of Jessica's car. 

The radio -- goddamit everyone had a fucking working radio besides Bella -- was blasting one top20 song by the mile and Bella felt like she had enough Katy Perry for a lifetime. 

The girls, Angela and Jessica, had invited Bella to Port Angeles, claiming they needed perfect outfits for Mike's upcoming Halloween party; when Jessica said the word 'shopping' her eyes shined so brightly it could have blinded any airplanes flying by.

Usually, that would mean Bella's personal hell on earth, but Port Angeles had something.

It had the stupid bookstore that Leah told her about; the proverbial pot of gold. 

And shopping with her maniac friends gave her the perfect excuse to hunt it down.

Even if she had to listen to Katy Perry's 'One of the boys' album a thousand fucking times while Lauren -- Jessica's cheerleader teammate -- shoved her iPhone on Bella's face for, quote, ' stories for my fans'. 

"You blinked again, Bellaaaa" Lauren pouted, gliding her fingers through her phone's screen, a tac-tac song coming out of her perfectly glittered pink nails. "Come on, let's take another one."

In the rear mirror, Bella saw Angela laughing back at her. 

"How much longer?" Bella asked through her teeth. It couldn't be much longer, could it? She would _murder_ someone. 

"Just two more Katy Perry's albums to go, Bells," Angela answered, smirking openly. Bella could kill her, she really could. " Enough time to take thousands of pics of our little road travel."

Jessica screeched loudly about feeling like a plastic bag or something and Bella regretted everything.

* * *

"You know we did it to annoy you, right?" Jessica said, bumping playfully on Bella's shoulder.

"Really? Couldn't tell." Bella answered back, smirking. 

They were walking down Port Angeles little streets, which were very charming, with brick buildings and quaint little shops; the air was clear and crisp, a chill wind blowing from time to time. 

It was a very perfect end of the afternoon and Bella thought of Rosalie, of how they could come to the small town together sometime, how Edward said there was a nice vinyl store he loved to visit; she even thought of Jasper and how he said he liked to go downtown to see the hand-painted murals.

She felt something stuck in her throat. She was betraying them, somehow, wasn't she? Invading their privacy, not respecting their secrets...but they owned her. Explanations and respect.

"Bells, are you alright?" Jessica asked, with concern written on her face. She laced their arms together. " You do this a lot, you know?"

"This what?"

"Space out."

"Oh, yeah...I guess I do." Bella avoided Jessica's eyes, suddenly finding the sidewalk very interesting. " I'm sorry, I promise I am listening."

"It's alright, I think it's pretty cute," Jessica said, smiling softly, her dimples showing a little.

Bella was glad her hood was pulled up and that Jess couldn't see her face all red from blushing.

* * *

Two stores later, Jessica and Lauren were still debating which slutty version of a regular outfit they would wear: Jessica was between slutty nurse or something related to a TV show where they used way too short uniforms, and Lauren just wanted a more sluttier version of her cheerleader uniform. 

They tried to drag Bella and Angela to do a Charlie's Angels costume, complete with a leotard but got a hard _No_ from both of them.

The store was small and smelled kinda moldy, but was surprisingly packed with the most diverse outfit. Angela had decided pretty early on this awesome ripped bride's dress, which she would drip blood all over and be like a Chucky's bride.

Bella had grabbed a pair of fangs for no reason; she figured she could put her leather jacket, style her hair back and go as vampire James Dean or something.

While Jess and Lauren bickered at each other between racks of clothes, Bella and Angela were sitting on an extremely old leather sofa, sipping on lukewarm coffee. 

"Wanna bet they will both go as slutty cheerleaders?" Bella said over her cup of coffee. 

"I don't know, Jessica really wants to impress someone this year," Angela mumbled, adjusting her glasses. 

"Who? Mikey?" Bella wondered out loud " Thought that shipped had sailed."

"It's not Mike she keeps calling to open the zippers of her costumes..." Angela mocked lightly and Bella had the decency to blush, even though she didn't think much of it. They were friends, right? Girlfriends were weird like that. 

"Don't be a prick, Angie," Bella said, laying back on the couch. She was so _not_ in the mood to have this conversation. " We are mates, buddies, _pals_."

"Well, she definitely wants to mate, I'll give you that."

Bella almost spitted coffee all over the already horrible couch. Angela gave her light pats on her back.

"Are you guys alright?" Jessica's head peaked behind a rack, a leather corset with too many straps hanging on her hands. 

"It's nothing, just Bella drinking too fast." Angela waved over, biting her lips to not laugh out loud. 

Bella seriously considered pretending to pass out to not have to continue this uncomfortable conversation, but Angela was having none of that. 

"Dude, it can't be a surprise for you that Jess has...a thing for you," Angela considered her words " Well, a crush, I guess."

"Well, it is a _surprise,_ " Bella mumbled, feeling the urgent need to light up a cig. 

Was it a surprise, really? Bella couldn't quite tell. 

She knew that Jess was sweet to her and sometimes jealous of her time, but she wouldn't imagine...maybe she was so obsessed with Rosalie that she couldn't notice anything else.

Rosalie, who wasn't even speaking to her after that stupid fight under the bleachers. 

Bella risked a glance over to Jessica. The girl was holding what looked like a Batman outfit but with a skirt, discussing loudly with Lauren over whatever. 

Jessica was pretty, Bella wasn't blind to it, her chestnut hair was wavy and soft, she had cute dimples and her eyes closed slightly when she smiled, she had a killer body, no doubt about it, and Bella thought that her being shorter than herself was very cute.

And Jess was nice, funny and mischievous, and didn't give two fucks about what anyone thought. She was an open book, simple and straightforward. 

Jessica was easy and it would be easy liking her back, Bella could use some ease.

But Jess was not Rosalie. 

"Look, Bella, I fuking adore you, you are funny, your taste in music is not terrible and you fixed my computer that one time," Angela said, her tone was playful but there was an underlying seriousness to it, an air of importance to what she was saying. " But I know Jess since kindergarten, and I know she looks like a total airhead sometimes but she is bright, and great, and deserves someone awesome who is gonna put her first."

"Angie, I'm not..." Bella started, unsure of how to proceed " I won't hurt her, not on purpose."

"It's not about hurting her." Angela continued "Just don't let her think she is not special, alright?"

Bella nodded and sipped her now cold coffee with a mind full of chestnut and gold and everything unsaid in between.

* * *

Bella waved to the girls and turned to walk down the street. They were going to hit another costume store before going to eat, so Bella found it the perfect moment to skip off to the bookstore. 

Jessica pouted a lot but Angela dragged her away, winking playfully back at Bella. She felt so weird now like she was hyper-aware of everything she did around Jess...she hoped this feeling would go away soon and she stopped overthinking about the way she was waving her stupid hand.

Bella stuffed her hands inside her jacket and pulled up the hood of her hoodie underneath. It was dark now, and the crisp afternoon had been replaced by a fairly cold night.

The bookstore was some good four to five blocks downtown, and the streets turned darker and emptier the farther she went. 

Edward had texted her not two minutes before, wondering if she managed to go to the vinyl place he talked about and Bella, wanting to taunt him, answered she was going to visit the local bookstore first.

**Eddy Boy: I like books as much as the next person, but that bookstore is pretty empty and the staff is...well, nonexistent.**

**Bells: there's some stuff I want to check it out and i think i can only find it there**

**Eddy: want me to google it? maybe there's an ebook**

**Bells: already looked online, it's Quileute stuff**

**Eddy Boy is typing....**

He stopped answering then and Bella felt so fucking frustrated she almost ran over to the bookstore.

Unfortunately, Edward was pretty on point with his description. The bookstore was a decrepit building, with faded cracked bricks on the front and no light whatsoever; inside was no much better, with so much dust on the air that there should be a warning sign somewhere.

The staff consisted of a single teenager who ignored the use of the English language, choosing to just point at stuff instead.

But there was a _whole_ bookshelf on Quileute culture, legends, history. Bella was practically shaking with anticipation. She grabbed books at random, skimmed over pages, squinting at the faded little words.

She stayed longer than she intended, almost a whole hour, and only noticed because of a pointed cough coming from the counter. She had an armful of books, small tomes with yellowed pages; one out of eight had managed to catch her attention, it had a whole chapter on 'The Cold Ones'.

Bella skipped happily to the counter, not even the bored face of the teen could sour her mood; she would find out what was fucking _on_ with the Cullens, finally.

She checked her phone and found a missed call from Jessica, she was probably waiting at the diner already. Bella sent out a quick text saying she was coming over, grabbed the bag filled with books, and went out.

It was eerily silent on the street, the corners were pitch black and the streetlights were casting long shadows on the concrete; Bella hugged her jacket closer and started walking. 

Wasn't long before she started listening to whistles and shoutings behind her back.

 _Oh fucking hell,_ she thought, dread creeping her stomach.

A group of rowdy men were walking behind her, no more than five or so, still far off enough that she couldn't quite see theirs faces. They shouted obscenities and increased their steps.

Bella did the same, not looking back, not even to peak. On Phoenix, she had always been smart, avoiding dark streets past 10:00 PM and having trusty pepper spray close by.

Bella was tough, she could handle herself, she was sure of it, she had been in enough moshpits back in Phoenix to know how to raise her fists and push around. But she was panicking now, her breaths shorts; it was so fucking dark, and no open stores nearby...

She was so fucking stupid, _so fucking_...

Flashings and the screech of tires on the sidewalk got her out of it because suddenly there was Edward's shiny Volvo and pissed off blondie coming out of it.

Bella blinked and Edward was all over them, she blinked again and one of the guys was hitting the wall to the side, another was clutching his arm to his side in obvious pain.

How the fuck skinny, stupid, pale as snow and must likely anemic, _Eddy,_ was throwing man double his size around?

_How?_

_"_ You should fuck off _, right now."_ Edward had so much venom in his voice that he didn't need to shout; Bella felt goosebumps all over.

She let her bag of books drop to the ground, she needed to help out, right?

But before she could take even two steps, Edward was back in front of her, the guys already dragging themselves away, taking nervous glances over their shoulders. 

And Eddy, he wasn't even _sweaty_. He didn't look winded out or tired, and aside from his tense posture and now dark golden eyes, he was the same as always -- one of his coppery locks had fallen on his forehead, and he pushed it back.

_But that was it._

_"_ What the actual _fuck,_ Edward?" Bella barely recognized her own voice, it was raw and shaky. Edward was looking at her with a fevered look like she could break at any given moment.

He took a stepped towards Bella and she promptly took a step back, almost falling on her butt. 

She might as well have punched him by the way he recoiled back into place.

"Are you alright, Bella? Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?" Edward stumbled over his word, but remained firmly in place, his hands tight at his sides. Bella thought he was shaking, but maybe it was because he was only wearing a thin T-shirt in the terrible cold. "Bella, I'm _so_ sorry that happened."

Bella was only half-listening, her head hurting so much from trying to make sense of it all.

There were giant neon words floating in her mind: How. The. Fuck.

Eddy was still babbling when Bella interrupted.

"Eddy, what the fuck just happened?" Bella whispered, hurt and confused " Are you stalking me? What is going on?"

"I..." He started but the loud ring of his phone. He looked relieved to being interrupted and rushed to answer it. 

"Hi, Alice..." Edward's was scrunched up as he talked on the phone and Bella felt her patience getting thiner by the minute, the adrenaline making her head spin. " No, yeah, I'm sorry... I needed to run, there was no time!" -- a beat -- " You could just have followed me! Yeah, yeah, she's alright now..."

Bella looked pointedly at Edward, for fuck's sake did everyone get answers besides her?

"Look, I need to go... I need to talk to her, goddammit!" Edward finished the call rudely, shoving the iPhone carelessly in his jean's pocket.

"Who was that?" Bella was on to him " Let me guess, Alice _'saw'_ me."

Edward looked horrified.

"You say that a lot, do you notice?" Bella continued, glad that she caught him off-guard, mockery dripping from her words " Alice 'saw' this, Alice 'saw' that, it keeps adding up. Do you think I am stupid?"

"I'm gonna ask again, _Edward_ , are you stalking me?"

"Look, Bella..." His eyes searched everywhere but her as if someone would magically show up and rescue him from this fuck up. " It's not what it looks like, when you talked about the bookstore I just...ran. I needed to talk to you."

"And then yeah, it was dumb luck I just got here in time. Alice and Rosalie were worried that I rushed out."

Bella digested the words carefully. Why did he care so much about a stupid visit to the bookstore? How did he get to Port Angeles so fast? When the fuck did he became a ninja who beat 5 guys in the blink of an eye?

Bella was obnoxious but she wasn't a complete imbecile.

"Eddy, that doesn't even begin to cover anything...can't you be honest?"

"I _am_ being honest." He looked disgruntled and his words weren't coming easily " I was _so_ worried, Bella. So, so worried."

"Worried that those guys were going to fuck me up or worried that I might find out something you don't want me to?" Bella was beyond feeling bad for him at this point, she just wanted honest answers.

Edward's eyes darted to the bag filled with books on the ground and Bella stepped protectively in front of it.

"I'm not going to do anything...I swear." He sighed, his hands raised in surrender " Let me give you a ride back, we can talk some more and..."

"No."

"No? Bella you can't..."

"Give me a ride back to the girls, I'm not going with you."

"Bella..."

"I'm not afraid to keep walking in the dark." -- she actually was -- " I don't fucking care."

When she was met with no answer, she made a point of grabbing the books spilled on the ground and turned quickly to the way she was going. 

She didn't manage to walk long before Edward ran in front of her.

"It's ok...ok, let's go." Edward surrendered, gesturing to his car badly parked.

* * *

The car ride was silent besides the radio playing, and Bella used the time to text the girls, who were worried sick. 

It didn't take more than 10 minutes before they stopped in front of a colorful diner, this side of downtown being bright with lights and people. 

Bella mumbled a 'thank you' and was ready to jump out of the car when she felt Edward's cold hand holding her wrist carefully. 

"Bella...I, hm..." Eddy was shy again, but he took a big breath before saying " Bella, whatever you find out, don't forget I'm your friend."

Bella smiled back at him, tapping his face gently. He smiled carefully and Bella was reminded how beautiful and sweet Edward was.

Her best friend. 

"I would never, Eddy." She said, with confidence " _Never_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do like Katy Perry you guys, don't kill me.
> 
> One of the boys is awesome. 
> 
> Yes, Bella will found out the next chapter, stay tuned.


	12. one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vampires.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES IT IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE THINKING.
> 
> NO, THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

Bella threw her fourth can of Red Bull carelessly over her shoulder, not too worried about hitting the trash in her bedroom; her eyes were bloodshot and her hair was so greasy it stayed combed back like she had put hair gel on it.

She was a girl on a mission. 

Her mission? Devouring so much Quileute history she could a whole thesis about it.

Mostly, she wanted to understand the whole shebang with these 'Cold Ones' folk -- she went on and on over yellowed out pages of legend, folklore, and history. 

By the last book, a heavy tome with too many commas and no fucking index, Bella had a very clear view of what the fuck was going on. 

It was almost obvious, really.

The 'cold ones' were a metaphor to chauvinist and capitalists 'white men', which the Cullens _clearly_ were, and their weird, cult-like, habits. Most likely, Eddy's family had bought indigenous land a long time ago and never gave it back -- very shitty alright -- and he's probably ashamed or something.

It made _so much sense._ The bloodless victim's thing? Money! The fight, why the Cullens don't like to go to the reservation, why Edward was so reticent about sharing his past, his inexplicable diet...it all made fucking sense.

Yeah, ok, it was weird that the Cullens still looked like a fucking cult? Yes.

Maybe there was some religion mixed in a well.

She was just _glad_ and _relieved_ her friend wasn't hiding something huge, like, murder or supporting Trump; just good family issues.

It sure felt very over-the-top that he would go to such lengths to hide this, but she had seen people get paranoic for far less; and her brain had seen better days, being drowned in Red Bull as it was.

She felt bad now, though. She definitely owed him something, the thing with Rosalie...or whatever Bella felt towards her. It wasn't fair to probe Eddy's life and not give anything back.

_Ugh_ , Bella's head hurt.

Bella got up from her computer's desk, stretching her back until she heard a clear 'pop'. She pulled up her hoodie and, kicking cans aside, made her way to bed. 

Dropping down gracelessly, she reached out for her iPhone and typed out a quick text to Edward. 

**Bells: we need to talk. tmrw.**

Then she went to sleep, letting Edward freak out all by himself. Like a total dick.

* * *

Edward couldn't have chosen a creepier setting for their 'talk'.

The forest close to a barely-there park was dark and cold, with this heavy aura hanging on the air. Dead leaves littered the ground and softened Bella's steps, bringing an eerie silence to it all.

There were no birds chipping away or fat squirrels climbing up trees while they walked a sinuous trail. 

Bella looked nervously over her shoulder, thinking of her decaying truck parked so close to a hill, chilling all over when she thought of the handbrake of the stupid thing breaking...

"I doubt the deers in this woods know how to drive stick, Bella." Edward looked back at her, somehow not tripping over as he walked "Your truck is safe."

"And bears, Eddy? Bears have thumbs! They could definitely drive it."

"Did you leave leftover tacos inside your car again?"

"I have seen a bear driving, you know?" Bella said matter of factually, while Edward waited with a raised eyebrow " On Youtube."

"Please, stop watching Youtube." Edward said, climbing over a fallen trunk " We are here."

It was a small clearing, on the top of a small hill made of dead leaves and mud. There's a clear patch of grass in the middle, large enough to lazy about. 

There was some clarity coming between the tall trees, but it was mostly a cloudy day.

"I usually come here to enjoy some silence," Edward explained, looking at the clearing with a weird intensity. " The city can be loud, sometimes."

Bella hummed in agreement, even if she thought Forks was kind of a ghost town. She knew Eddy liked his silences and that was the reason he -- most often than not -- had earbuds hanging from his ears.

Eddy sat down on the patch of grass, hugging his knees close to his chest, and looked at Bella expectantly.

"So, talk?" He asked, firmly. 

"Actually, I was hoping _you_ would talk." Bella plopped down beside him. The grass was wet and uncomfortable, and she wondered once more how Edward looked so unbothered by the cold. "I mean, I really want you to."

"You texted me, Bella." Eddy sighed, looking straight ahead. "We are even skipping class."

"Skipping class won't kill you."

"You making me worry sick for a whole night just might." He was fidgety, twisting his hands on top of his knees, not making eye contact. Bella could see his jaw tensed, by the corner of her eye. 

She nudged him a little and smiled softly.

"Dude, it's cool." She said, "Well, not cool _,_ but you know, cool."

"What is cool? How can it possibly be cool?"

"I mean, I guess I figured it out." 

" _Wha_ _t_?" 

"Chill, oh my god it's not a big deal."

"How it can possibly _not_ be a big deal?!"

"Ok, ok!" Bella says, raising her hands in surrender. 

Eddy was pacing the clearing now, fists clenched. Bella was pretty sure he was _this_ close to having a stroke.

Then, he stopped suddenly. Took a deep breath. 

“I have something to tell you,” Edward says, and he looks constipated — but honestly he always looks like someone shoved some particular bad-smelling cheese under his nose.

“Ok, cool, I got something to tell you too.” She says and then “We can say it together, how about it?”

“Together? At the same time?” And he looks so surprised with this suggestion it’s almost cute. This guy.

“Yeah, you ready?” a deep breath “ On three!”

“Wait! Hold on, on three or after three?!” “Two!”

“Bella! On three? Is it on three?!”

“ Three!”

“I’m a vampire!” “Your sister is hot!”

A beat.

“Oh shit, you’re what?”

* * *

It was the perfect moment for a bird to fly by or thunder to crash or anything to break the tension, really.

Bella was accepting _aliens_ invading at this point. 

Wait, vampires and aliens would be way too much.

_God_ , she needed a smoke.

But the silence continued and Eddy was looking angrily back at her, outrage all over his handsome face, and accusing finger pointed.

"You said you FUCKING KNEW!"

_Wow, swearing Edward,_ Bella thought -- half impressed and half scared.

"Vampire, dude? Really? Is that how you call your cult?"

"Cult? What cult? It is a coven!" Edward said, so confused and desperately running a hand through his tousled hair, to which Bella made a face. Poor guy always took forever to fix his locks. "Oh God, I'm so DEAD."

"A coven of vampires? Is this how it is called?" Bella wondered out loud.

Someone had to ask the important questions. 

"I thought you _knew!_ " Edward was close to ripping his hair out, he dropped down next to Bella " You had the books, you had _us,_ you said you needed to _talk...how come you don't know?_ "

Ok, Bella could recognize when she was being called dumb.

"Hey! I read about the cult thing, I didn't know you guys called yourselves vampires !" Bella said, crossing her arms. She was _not_ dumb, she drew a logical conclusion. " This is very weird by the way, but I won't judge."

"Bella." Edward took a deep breath and held Bella's shoulders, looking directly inside her eyes. He had very pretty eyelashes. " _I'm a vampire_."

Bella nodded along, she got that part right. That was slightly more cringe than she imagined, but she could roll with the punches. Her best friend and her crush liked to pretend they were Dracula, sure, alright.

_Go diversity_. 

" Dude, I _got_ that." Bella held Edwards's shoulders, so now they looked like they would wrestle to the ground any second. " It's alright, family is embarrassing. My mom got into a fad once and started collecting little troll dolls, it was a whole thing."

"I...what?"

"Little troll dolls, with the hair, you know? She would name _them._ Your family thinking they are vampires is banana's but still..."

"I don't think I'm following you..."

"I just trying to relate."

Edward got up again, massaging his temples now. He closed his eyes for a minute and then just relaxed.

"Ok, yeah, I'm not a vampire." He said, with finality " It's totally a cult thing."

Bella scrunched up her face. Edward's face was a blank space, no expression whatsoever. So much like wherever she made difficult questions...

_Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck_....

"Oh my fucking god, you _are_ a vampire !"

"I just told you I ain't!"

"You can't lie for a shit, mate, I'm sorry." Bella poked back at him, who huffed indignantly.

Then it dawned on her. _Vampires_.

Vampires! Motherfucking, bloodsucking, horror-movie, _vampires_.

There was dread in the pit of her stomach, she couldn't lie, but also excitement. Vampires fit way more the cult-like-thingy that she was theorizing about. It made perfect sense, to be honest.

And it was _way_ cooler.

Bella got to her feet, ready to interrupt Edward's very clear meltdown. 

"Eddy boy, this so COOL!" She said, throwing her arms to the sky. This was so beyond anything that ever happened in Phoenix ."You are a fucking vampire! Does this mean Dracula is real? Do you drink blood? Can you eat garlic? Can you eat pizza with garlic on it? And crosses, is that a thing? Can you turn into a little bat?"

"Oh, oh do you have fangs? Can I see them? Unless this is very rude of me to ask, is this very rude? Is it like asking to see your dick? Because I definitely don't..."

"Please stop."

"Ok." Bella took a huge breath. Maybe she went overboard a little bit, Eddy looked like a truck had run him over. If she squinted she would see little swirls of confusion floating over his head. 

"I'm strong," Edward said like it was the first thing that came to his mind.

"You are strong?"

"I'm stronger than a human, yes." He repeated.

"Well, ok, show it."

Edward looked around the clearing, still obviously dazed, then proceed to rip a small tree that was just laying about and threw it into the forest, as fast as a rocket launcher.

Bella almost fell to the ground in shock, but more importantly:

"What the fuck, Eddy you just ripped the tree! Do vampires hate trees?"

"You told me to show it!"

"Unreal, man, there's a trunk right behind you. Don't hurt nature!"

"What? Why...? You smoke!"

There was a beat of silence before they both fell into laughter, joyous laughter. Bella was so glad there wasn't a secret hanging over them anymore.

It was so much better, so much easier. Lighter! She felt like she could float about. Like she wasn't a crazy conspiracy lady. 

Eddy was a vampire, the Cullen's were a little coven. Ok, no problem.

Bella was almost bent over in laugher when Eddy approached her, smiling hugely, his best smile yet.

"Bella, you don't actually care?" He asked, softly, all his fear and dread pushed aside. "That I'm a vampire?"

Bella smiled back, shaking her head.

"I don't care _at all_."

And then the most surprising thing happened, Edward Cullen, hugged her.

* * *

Bella was sure that if Edward could blush, he would be as red as a tomato right now. He was smiling from ear to ear though, hadn't stopped yet.

It was weird to Bella to wrap her mind around the fact that Eddy -- her awkward, geeky, and obsessive, Eddy -- was an immortal being full of power. 

He looked terribly human now, his coopery locks framing his face, his black Converse dirt with mud from walking through the forest floor, a small tear on his jeans from god knows when.

But then he could also run like the Flash and was basically unbreakable; like that movie Bella's father loved.

"Remember when you asked if I was vegan?" Eddy mused out loud. This was the freest Bella had ever seen him, words and explanations just kept pouring from his mouth." Well, we _technically_ are. Vegan vampires, I mean. We only eat animals, or sometimes blood bags." 

"That's like, the opposite of being vegan, dude."

"In relation to _other_ vampires, I mean." Edward frowned "Believe me, it's pretty rare in our world, but it was a choice my maker, Carlisle, made a long time ago. And our family never looked back."

"So, I mean, usually vampires feed on humans...?" Bella asked, trying to not sound as nervous as she felt. There was no problem with the Cullens, Bella trusted them, but apparently, they weren't the only ones on planet Earth. "I figure, the legends have got to come from somewhere, right?"

Edward took his time to answer, pulling at the short grass beneath him. 

"Yes, we usually do." Edward explained, slow and carefully " Biologically speaking, we are the hunters and you guys are..."

"The foxes?"

"Yes, basically."

"Nice Taylor Swift reference."

Edward laughed and the tension left his face somewhat.

"If you have like, science-related questions, I bet Carlisle trilled to explain it all to you, he doesn't get many chances to spill his knowledge, as you can guess."

"I can imagine."

"But, the legends you read? About the 'Cold Ones'? That's 100% true, we won't hurt anyone. Not here, not _anywhere_." And Edward said it with conviction, a feverish glint on his eye. Didn't take a genius to see that this subject was very...delicate, to him.

Bella let it sink in, it was...interesting thinking of herself as a McHuman to a vampire. It sounded gross; she probably tasted like a smoked pork chop, from all the cigs and such.

The silence stretched a little and Bella finally got her pack of cigarettes out, lightning one up. Edward looked disapprovingly, but for once didn't make a move to put it out. Bella looked at her lit cig and back at Eddy.

"Can you smoke?"

"Yes, but nicotine doesn't do anything particularly nice to me. I don't see the point." He answered, shrugging.

"You could do it for the aesthetic." Bella mumbled on "You would look like a red-headed Alex Turner."

"It doesn't sound _that_ appealing." Eddy frowned in disgust "And my mouth would taste of ashes."

Bella hummed along, taking a drag and letting the nicotine do its thing. She laid back on the grass, hoping her jacket would protect her from the moisture.

"Eddy?"

"Yes?"

"Why me?" Bella asked.

Why her? Eddy has probably been around for a while now, he must have met so many people -- interesting folks -- from all over the world.

Great people, fun people, cooler, and definitely more mature people.

Why Bella Swan should carry this secret then? She wasn't anything special, nothing noteworthy; she wasn't important enough to make her ex-girlfriend stick around.

Hell, her _mother_ didn't care much if she was around or not.

Why, then, Bella Swan? _Why_?

"There are a lot of answers to that question," Edward answered, seeming amused with Bella's turmoil "We like the same bands, we like the same films, I kind of enjoy visiting you at your barista's gig."

"But, mostly, you were _nice_ to me when you didn't have to." He concluded, smirking at Bella. 

_Ok, that was super sweet._

"Also, for some reason, I can't read your mind."

"Oh.... _what_?"

"Yeah, I can usually read someone's mind, their floating thoughts and such." 

He said it with such calm it almost sounded like it was a common, everyday, occurrence.

Yes, because Bella would meet with supernatural beings every time she went to the supermarket. No biggie.

"Are you sure you are a vampire and not an X-men?" It wasn't like Bella was a professional on vampire's lore, but she was pretty sure mind-reading wasn't exactly a _thing_ in any of Anne Rice's book.

"Sometimes, when we turn into vampires, some _characteristics_ get...super. I guess this is one way to put it." It was clear Eddy was fighting for words to explain the craziness of vampire life " I got mind-reading, which is not as cool as it sounds. It just made me incredibly awkward and overloaded most of the time."

"Wow..."

"But I had much time to get it under control, music helps though..." He continues on "You as well, it's very nice to be around some quiet. Although it was an...adaption of sorts, to have conversations without knowing what you are going to say."

"You mean as everyone else does?" Bella laughed, poking Edward's ribs. Which were, of course, rock hard. "So, you like me because I'm like your soundproof barrier? Cool."

"Well, it's better than Rosalie's reason."

Bella's ears perked up at that.

"What is that about Rosalie?"

"What, besides you thinking she's hot?"

Bella's mouth shut like a trap. Christ, she had totally forgotten about that...horrible, horrible, revelation. She had the decency to blush and avoid Eddy's eyes -- then proceed to get worried that her blushing would bother Eddy.

You know, the whole 'I drink blood' thing he had going.

"I can't believe you think my sister is hot." Edward said, clearly mocking Bella "I can't _also_ believe I told you the biggest secret in Forks and got the most obvious one in exchange!"

"It is so _not_ obvious." 

"The only person who doesn't know about your...crush, is it?" He checked to see if the word was right, as he usually did with whatever slang was going on "Is the said focus of your affection."

"Go fuck yourself, bat's breath." Bella got up indignantly while Edward burst into laugher. The audacity of this prick!

Edward finally got over himself and swiftly got up and stopped Bella in her step. She just _knew_ he would be using his stupid super-speed all the time now.

"Hey, Bella, it was just a little joke." He raised his hands in mock surrender, his smirk still in place " I need you to come with me, though, I promised my family that I would bring you to them after our...talk."

"You mean, _right now_?"

"Yes, right now."

Bella thought of Rosalie's beautiful face, of the way she left Bella hanging, of her fear.

But everything was different now...right?

"Yeah, sure, let's go visit your vampire's den, why the hell not?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it isssssss
> 
> Bella knows.
> 
> Lots of Eddy x Bella bonding, I love them.
> 
> But I'm super excited to write more Rosalie content. Alas, she's looking very Freja Wewer to me this week.
> 
> See ya soon.


End file.
